Geel strikes the visitor as a quiet, tidy but otherwise unremarkable Belgian market town. Yet its story is unique. For more than 700 years its inhabitants have taken the mentally ill and disabled into their homes as guests or ‘boarders’. At times, these guests have numbered in the 1000s, and arrived from all over Europe. There are several 100 in residence today, sharing their lives with their host families for years, decades or even a lifetime.

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