"All Americans are concerned about the cost of health care and mental-health care, since none of us are immune to chronic disease, disability associated with aging, or psychological disorders. Jason and Perdoux present a relatively low-cost and effective solution that is growing in neighborhoods across the country: true community. People are forming grassroots communities to meet one another's needs and bring a higher quality of life than that of institutions. People living in these healing communities include the aged, college students, people with chronic fatigue, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and sufferers of mental illness, AIDS, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. These communities offer a way to recover the caring, structure, direction, and respect that a strong family can provide." "Throughout history, people have lived in communal dwellings. Within the village, people helped each other not out of charity but because it was a natural way of life. Interconnections made survival more likely; mutual respect and working for common goals were therefore central features of these communities. Over the past 100 years, American culture has prioritized individual freedoms and goals, resulting in a decline in the human ability to relate, find bonds, and even - in many cases - bond with or be close to family members. Many people have lost both family and community: elders living alone, isolated or warehoused in nursing homes; people released from mental hospitals or detox with nowhere to go; sufferers of chronic illness with no one to support them. Jason and Perdoux show us how communities created out of necessity by their members constitute a natural, more sustained means to healing."--BOOK JACKET.