HOMELESS AND MISSING SERVICE HOMELESS AND MISSING SERVICE People who are mentally ill cannot always communicate their thoughts clearly or understand what others are saying to them. In confusion, some will retreat. Others have grandiose ideas and cannot make sound judgments. Sometimes they leave home or other secure surroundings, and they become homeless or missing. They can be gone for days, weeks, months, or years. Often they leave behind distraught families who are desperate to return their loved ones home or to a safe place.
What is the Homeless and Missing Service for Persons with Mental Illness?
The Homeless and Missing Service for Persons with Mental Illness is a program of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), a national, grassroots, self-help advocacy organization for families and friends of those suffering from severe mental illnesses and those persons themselves. The purpose of the service is to try to locate persons with mental illnesses who are reported missing by families, loved ones, or friends. It was created to provide assistance and support to families and people who are mentally ill and missing or homeless and to reunite them when possible.
How do I report a missing person with mental illness?
The Homeless and Missing Service operates an emergency hotline to assist all families and friends who have a missing relative or friend. The number is 912-328-3555 (fax number is the same), and it is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
When you contact the Homeless and Missing Service, you will be asked to complete and have notarized an application and send it with a clear photograph of the missing person to the national chairman or to a state coordinator. The national office keeps a complete file of all missing persons' cases, and all files are confidential.
What does the service do once it receives my application and photo?
When the service receives a request for assistance, it verifies the name, address, and telephone number of the person making the request and verifies the name, sex, and general description of the missing person. It then determines where the person disappeared from and for how long he or she has been missing. Both the national and state offices work with this information. You will be asked to send copies of guardianship papers, court orders, or doctors' letters (if you have them) attesting to the mental and physical condition of your missing loved one. The service will ask for your permission to obtain information about your loved one, prepare and distribute missing person flyers, and provide information for radio and television broadcast.
The national or state office will keep you informed about its progress. The service does not just work for the families and friends of the missing person. In most cases, it is also working directly with and for a missing person with a mental illness. The service is concerned with the missing person's interests and welfare, including his or her individual rights.
Most missing or homeless persons who are mentally ill are unable to help themselves and need the service's assistance.
What is it the service cannot do?
The service works to help you locate a missing person with mental illness; however, it does not have the responsibility of returning that person home or referring him or her to a hospital for observation or treatment.
When your loved one is located--and when he or she does not object--the service will immediately notify you of his or her location and general physical and mental condition. If the person is 21 years old or older and objects to your being informed of his or her location, the service cannot tell you where he or she is--but it will tell you about the person's general condition. If, however, your loved one is a danger to him- or herself or to others, the service will --notify you immediately of the person's location and condition; --notify the local law enforcement office, police, or sheriff in the county where the person is; and --notify the mental health state agency in the county where the person is.
The service does not have the authority to commit a person to a medical facility or decide any legal transaction, but it will give you advice and assistance when possible. Is there a charge for the services of the Missing and Homeless Service? This NAMI program does not charge anything for its services because those working the cases are families and friends of individuals who are mentally ill and homeless and missing. The service does not solicit donations, but it accepts them to help with expenses. All donations are tax-deductible.
How can I find out more about NAMI?
To find out more about NAMI--what it offers and how to join--call the NAMI Helpline at 1-800/950-NAMI.