About 20 or so people piled into Fountain House Bronx on a recent morning, filling the social club’s main hall with a mix of English and Spanish. The members, all of whom must have a mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder to join, discussed what was on the agenda for the day.

A handful of paid staff scattered themselves throughout the room, but it was up to the members to divide up tasks, such as cooking lunch, managing the front desk and picking up a fellow member from Lincoln Hospital after a medical procedure. Two people opted to work at the Wellness Corner, an onsite store that sells hygiene products and used clothes at a discount. Others volunteered to call members who hadn’t visited in a while.

Fountain House’s south Bronx outpost opened in 2013 in a smaller and less grandiose location compared to its flagship location in Midtown Manhattan, which houses enviable facilities such as a library, plant nursery and gym. But it serves the same purpose of connecting people to social services, employment and educational opportunities while fostering a strong sense of community — something members said is just as important to their mental health as therapy or medication.

With membership on the rise, Fountain House officials said the Bronx clubhouse had outgrown its current digs and was slated for a major expansion in the borough.

At a time when the discourse about how to address serious mental illness in New York has circled back to upping the number of hospital beds, court-mandated treatment and efforts to nudge homeless people out of the subway system, clubhouses represent a completely different approach.

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