This article describes a study that conceptualized the process of recruitment into treatment of homeless, mentally ill, chemical-abusing men, and investigated attrition of treatment-seeking clients during the treatment recruitment stage. The authors identify two stages prior to treatment enrollment, treatment exploration, and treatment recruitment and presents the results of a study of 1,924 homeless, mentally ill, chemical-abusing men who sought community-based treatment in New York City between 1991 and 1996. Only 326 of these men actually entered treatment. The rest were lost either prior to or during the recruitment phase. The paper focuses on the 823 men who reached the treatment recruitment stage, and attempts to correlate their sociodemographic, psychological, and substance abuse characteristics with the different types of attrition during treatment recruitment. The results show that certain client characteristics, such as issues of violence and assault, disruptive behavior and criminality, predict rejection by treatment programs. Certain other characteristics, such as those of depressed/suicidal clients with little history of disruptive or violent behavior, predict acceptance by the treatment programs. (Authors)