GOOD NEWS FOR THE HOMELESS

Finally we have reason to have hope for the region's homeless {"Psychiatric Help at the Shelters," editorial, Aug. 4} . With all due respect to Mitch Snyder's considerable achievements, the recently announced commitment to provide the District's homeless with the services of psychiatric trainees from Walter Reed Army and Bethesda Navy hospitals is the best news we've ever had on this subject. And based on experience in other fields, this development may be good news for more than the homeless.

Twenty-five years ago, when the world was faced with dozens of nations on the verge of social and economic collapse, pre-professionals of my generation were challenged by John F. Kennedy to spend two years in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Large numbers volunteered, and many returned profoundly affected by the experience of working on difficult problems alongside poor people who were blessed with incredible courage and strength. Bolstered by this unparalleled experience, returning volunteers asked difficult questions when they subsequently entered jobs or graduate and professional schools. These questions fostered innovative thinking about both Third World development and domestic poverty, and this thinking in turn affected the policies and programs of a variety of U.S. institutions.

While there are still too many impoverished nations and too many poor Americans, few would deny that considerable progress has been made in less than a generation for large numbers of poor people. Much of that progress can be traced to the lessons learned by privileged youths who stepped out of their comfortable surroundings, looked squarely in the face of poverty and asked: Why? By putting psychiatric residents on the front lines in the battle of the poor for mental health, the devastating impact of homelessness is reduced while creative young minds probe with their mentors for answers to its fundamental causes. I urge every teaching hospital in the region to support this new program, which offers hope for us all.

DAVID M. MOG

Arlington

The article "Psychiatric Residents to Work at D.C. Shelters" {front page, July 30} contained an unfortunate omission. While it is good news that two military medical programs will be sending psychiatric residents to work in homeless shelters, citizens of the District need to know that for 3 1/2 years the curriculum of the psychiatry training program of St. Elizabeths Hospital and the D.C. Commission on Mental Health has included group, family and individual treatment of disturbed shelter residents. The faculty of this training program have gone to shelter sites to assess their needs and then to guide psychiatric residents' therapeutic work with homeless people. Some residents have devoted up to 15 hours a week in a given shelter. Other professional trainees -- psychologists, social workers and chaplains -- have also worked for significant periods of time in shelters.

An example of these activities was the response to the stabbing deaths of two children at Capital City Inn shelter for homeless families in January 1987. Nineteen psychiatric residents from this training program gave immediate crisis intervention service to every one of the 196 families in that facility. Since 1985 the city government's Office of Emergency Shelter and Support Service has facilitated and supported these mental health services, which are part of the curricula of the professional training programs.

KATHLEEN L. OWENS

Faculty Member

St. Elizabeths/D.C. Mental Health Commission

Psychiatry Residency Training Program

Washington

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