Addressing Mental Health Disability in Unsheltered Homelessness: Outpatient Conservatorship in Los Angeles.

Objective: The authors sought to describe a pilot program for gravely disabled individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County that illustrates a promising public health framework to address mental health-related disability in homeless populations.

Methods: Homeless outreach teams implementing the outpatient conservatorship (OPC) pilot program adopted a population health approach, multisystem care coordination, and prioritization of the least restrictive environments. The program allowed initiation of a Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) conservatorship outside of a hospital, with the goal of serving highly vulnerable individuals in the least restrictive settings.