| > The reason California in particular has such a large population of mentally ill homeless people is thanks to a
few extra years of Reagan Reagan was the governor of California 40 years ago, and has been dead for 12 years. Why hasn't anyone undone what he did 40 years ago? In reality this is an example of the law of unintended consequences, not a case of "Reagan did it." I think the best way to view our current homelessness problem is as a vast failed social experiment, not a case of partisan politics. Everyone thought deinstitutionalization was a good idea at the time. Deinstitutionalization was pushed for by mental health professionals, who believed that treating mentally ill people in the community with newly developed drugs would be more effective than mental hospitals. Patients were being pushed out of the mental hospitals before Reagan even took office, and Reagan was happy to go along with the recommendations of the mental health professionals since the state saved money. Win-win, right? In California there was also the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act (written by two Democrats and a Republican, signed by Reagan), which limited the ability of the state to involuntarily confine people to mental hospitals. This act was hailed by the ACLU as a positive step forward, and again Republicans were also willing to sign on for the cause of smaller government. The policy of deinstitutionalization continued under Reagan's successor, Pat Brown (a Democrat and father of current governor Jerry Brown). |