It is an initiative of the Massachusetts Association For Mental Health, Inc. (MAMH), which identifies and documents more than 3,000 adult clients of the Department of Mental Health (DMH) and over 200 children and adolescents, who are on waiting lists for housing, residential and support services. Many have been waiting for more than two years. Take a look at the People Are Waiting brochure.

Introduction
In February of 1999, MAMH issued its first People Are Waiting Report, which identified and documented over 3,000 adult clients of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, who were on waiting lists for housing, and residential support services. Since that date, MAMH has issued three subsequent reports, the last in March of 2001, which was renamed People & Families are Waiting in order to remind policy makers that mental illness not only brings devastating consequences to the afflicted individual, but also to his or her family, friends and social network.

The People & Families are Waiting Initiative came about because MAMH believes that Legislators and Executive Branch policy makers are entitled to accurate, objective information as to the extent of the waiting lists before it can reasonably be expected of them to develop funding strategies to address the unmet needs. Because MAMH is not the Department of Mental Health, and is not a provider of residential services, it was in a unique position to become the "honest broker" in presenting factual information on the unmet needs of people with mental illness.

Over the past years, advocates, legislators and other policy makers have used the People and Families are Waiting Reports to make providing for the housing and residential support needs of people with mental illness a higher priority.

The Charts that follow outline the waiting lists both in statewide figures and within each DMH Area. We have also included a chart indicating the wait list figures for children and adolescents.