The St. Louis Community Homes Program: graduated support for long-term care.

The authors describe a group-home program that has been operating successfully for three years in St. Louis, Mo. The program offers ex-mental hospital patients the opportunity to gradually acquire experience in living independently in the community. The success of a living arrangement in which an apartment is shared by a group of patients demonstrates long-term chronic patients can often adjust to minimally supervised living arrangements and that many ex-mental hospital patients can use this experience as a springboard to personal growth and eventual autonomy.