Caring on the margins of the healthcare system

This paper addresses the working practices of a mobile mental health outreach team in a large French city, one that ‘targets’ homeless people with severe psychiatric disorders who are considered ‘hard to reach’ by the public health authorities and medical services. Analysis of the team's work – where acts of curing and caring are closely tied – reveals the importance of moving beyond a polarized vision of cure and care. The paper departs from much of the literature on the medicalization of social problems by arguing that medicalization is not only a means of social control, but has ethical value as well. In examining the practices of frontline health workers, it aims to show that integrating the methods and theoretical approaches of social work in medical practice is necessary to address the specific problems of homeless people, to enable health professionals to pursue medical cures, and to challenge the shortcomings of public policy.