A book by Jacqueline Janssen
Every Homeless Person Has a Mother
Shining a Light on Prevention
A mother’s lived experience turning heartbreak and fury into recovery and healing for her loved one, the clinician, and herself.
An empathetic exploration of family, biological or chosen, whose knowledge is too often disregarded, and how clinicians can engage families and the power of belonging to reduce crisis, prevent cycles of hospitalization, jail, homelessness, improve recovery, and feel more supported in their work of healing.
“The family is integral to the wellness of each family member, and the health of the family depends on the wellness of its members.”
Marin County Family Partnership Policy
Words shared with Jacqueline
Personal Notes
“Warm Congratulations once more on this urgent work.”
Matthew DesmondAuthor of Evicted and Poverty By America, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
“Thank you for your kind, wise and generous words. It’s magical to know we have community across the miles.”
Gloria Steinem
The heart of the book
Why This Book Matters
A clinician stepped outside the way things were usually done and used the discretion allowed under HIPAA to contact me. After ten years of homelessness, my son was able to have a soft landing. Today, he is thriving. That clinician changed our lives.
Every Homeless Person Has a Mother presents evidence that informed family involvement can help prevent relapse, support recovery, and transform mental health care. Families and clinicians often want the same thing: recovery for the person they love and serve. Yet families are too often left outside the treatment process.
Through lived experience, research, and models of clinician-family collaboration, this book shows another way forward, one built on partnership rather than exclusion.
This is the model for prevention.
Adapted from the opening section, “Why This Book Matters,” in Every Homeless Person Has a Mother.
“I wish this book had been available when my son had his first psychotic break.”
Pete Earley, Journalist and Author of CRAZY
Mothers and caregivers
The Invisible Work Families Carry
Mothers and caregivers become advocates, mediators, medication managers, schedulers, researchers, record-keepers, negotiators, financial planners, crisis managers, and protectors. This invisible work is on top of jobs, careers, family life, and when possible, their own. Living through the illness, with memories of the years of health, they also hold the possibility of recovery.
Every Homeless Person Has a Mother reveals their immeasurable strength, and shows how to claim and use this power to advocate effectively for their loved ones, the clinicians, and themselves.
Read “Mothers Are Warriors” on Substack ↗“I feel so seen. I am howling in despair, grief, anger…but this gives me hope. Someone sees it. It’s not just in my mind or heart. It’s real. I love you for you and for this. My God.”
Jaz Taihreen, mother
Family knowledge is part of the solution
Homelessness Doesn’t Begin on the Street
Long before someone becomes homeless, a family may be trying desperately to help. Mothers, as the primary caregivers, know the history, the medications, the warning signs, what has worked and what has failed. Yet too often they are blamed, dismissed, or kept outside the system.
“Of all the mistakes of psychiatry over this past century, the tendency to see families as part of the problem instead of part of the solution is one of the most egregious. Jacqueline Janssen makes a powerful case for correcting this error by ensuring that families are included in every part of the treatment process. This is an important and hopeful message that comes at a time when recovery is finally being understood as a goal for people with serious mental illness.”
Thomas R. Insel, MD, Author of Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health, Former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health
One story, one donation at a time
Proceeds With Purpose
Proceeds from this book will support those helping to prevent homelessness, recover from it, or live without housing.
Miracle Messages
Rebuilds critical social support systems by reuniting unhoused neighbors with their families and loved ones.
Visit organization ↗ 02Whole Family Healing
Provides specialized, evidence-based clinical therapy and structured interventions for families and caregivers.
Visit organization ↗ 03National Shattering Silence Coalition
Advocates for compassionate, family-centred mental health care and critical policy reform.
Visit organization ↗Families belong in the room