Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

New Group Home in Seattle - To Offer a New Kind of Life For Five Women

There is a good story in the Seattle Times this week. A new kind of home will offer a new kind of life for 5 women with mental illness. They'll run the household and eventually be expected to go to school, get jobs or do volunteer work. The story notes:

Hofmann House for Women is a new kind of home for people with mental illness, who more often live with their parents, on the streets or in transitional housing with mental-health care but no roadmap for building independent, self-supporting lives, said Frank Jose, executive director of NAMI Greater Seattle.

NAMI Greater Seattle, an affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has modeled the house after its seven-year-old Hofmann House for Men not far away. Five of the men are working or are in school; a sixth just moved in. After the women get settled in their house, they will attend a course taught by other mentally ill people to learn how to enhance their "mental wellness". The class will explore the nature of their illnesses and ways to avoid relapsing into debilitating symptoms. The women will continue taking prescribed medications and seeing their caseworkers and psychiatrists at mental-health agencies.

Read the full story: New kind of home will offer a new kind of life for five women