Reply #31: It wasn't until the Reagan administration [View All]

[jberryhill]

...but two things happened.

On the one hand, you had civil rights claims by those who were institutionalized improperly, leading to a broader question of how, in a democratic society, we decide who gets locked up and who doesn't.

On the other hand, you had governments looking to cut budgets.

So, in a marriage of convenience, the city streets of the US became open-air psych wards.

It's one thing when you consider homeless advocates working for affordable housing and employment access for relatively psychologically healthy persons who have had a run of bad luck and society has abandoned. It's quite another thing when you see some guy on the street gesticulating wildly while engaged in a non-coherent argument with invisible people. That guy doesn't need an affordable home or a job, he needs medication, therapy, and a cot and three hots while figuring out if he could ever get and hold a job and be responsible for maintaining a dwelling independently.

I also assume without looking, that the substance of the decision and the issue actually addressed, bears little relation to the headline or reactions here. That is also typical of popular treatment of Supreme Court decisions.