Has anything ever been done to reverse Reagan's policies that blew up the homeless problem

[Quixote1818]

in the 80's? He closed a lot of the hospitals for the mentality ill and low cost housing aid etc? Has Biden talked at all about reversing any of this?

Just curious as I keep seeing these rightwing posts on FB showing the homeless in CA trying to blame liberals for the homeless problem. As if CA can help that it has nice weather in the winter when they count homeless people. From most everything I have read, this is much more of a federal issue.

[leftieNanner]

1. Reagan messed up California

When he was governor. Then he federalized it all in DC. I wish we could go back.

[AZProgressive]

2. Blaming closing hospitals on Reagan

And acting like that has anything to do with the current situation shows me they have little understanding how the mental health care system works.

You're only institutionalized if you're a threat to yourself or others and even then the stay is usually 3 weeks at most. If someone has a mental disability to the point where they can't work they need SSDI (I would expand benefits), housing, and health care. Outpatient treatment works fine for most people.

I have a 100% service connected disability with the VA so I know how the system works. I was also born during the Reagan administration and was homeless following The Great Recession. I'm fine now though. I blame trickle down economics for the homeless problem.

[KPN]

4. The system was a bit different before Reagan I believe.

I don’t know all the particulars, but there were a lot of institutions serving people with mental illnesses in my home State that are now closed because of Reagan. They are pretty much all gone so believe.

[AZProgressive]

5. I personally wouldn't want to go back to the old days of mental health treatment

Either way people are under a mistaken impression that the reason why someone is homeless is because they are mentally ill which is why I blame trickle down economics which you can also pin on Reagan.

[Grokenstein]

11. Not all homeless are mentally ill, but many mentally ill become homeless

and everyone suffers for it.

But if anyone uses the phrases "homeless" and "mental illness" in close proximity, it almost always provokes a screaming fit from somebody.

Reagan and California progressives worked together to make the mess in California. Reagan wanted people thrown into the street to fend for themselves, and progressives wanted to be seen freeing the oppressed to follow their bliss. But these people need help. Some need treatment. And they will never get it as long as too many people keep characterizing our choices as (1) continue to look the other way and pretend they're not there, and (2) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, just even worse.

[AZProgressive]

13. Being homeless causes mental illness too

It is traumatic trying to figure out a place to sleep, drink, and use the restroom.

I guess Reagan should have locked up me up in a mental hospital since I was born but it was actually Bush's Iraq war that caused it.

[Grokenstein]

15. Is that supposed to change my argument somehow

Because it only reinforces the fact that the problem needs actual solutions.

[Kaleva]

20. Not actually.

The numbers of people with varying degrees of mental illness are very large and most are not homeless and with medication and treatment, they can live productive lives.

Pre-Reagan, it was a lot easier to get a person committed against their will.

[KT2000]

8. Know that outside the VA

things operate differently. My friend who had a psychotic break was finally able to get help when she became a danger to herself. She eventually bottomed out and spent a month in a mental facility. She was released still seeing little men and thinking there were people in the attic with no follow-up. She only had Medicare Part A which does not cover aftercare, just hospitalization. I tried to get her care through a local mental health clinic and they did say they would try to use some grant money for followup. They called her and left a message saying - if she felt like talking to someone she should call.

She thinks she is OK so she will not call. What she does not know is that her landlord is having someone check up on her "as a friend" but is really evaluating her status so the landlord will know to evict her if she shows signs of psychosis again. She cannot afford to live in any other apartments. She is in charge of her own life and I fear it may result in homelessness.

[AZProgressive]

9. I also went through the private health care system too

I actually was never locked up in a VA hospital. I went through UPC (Phoenix) a few times and I won't go into much more personal details than that. Phoenix CASS(Central Arizona Shelter Services) is how I got enrolled at the VA. They had a section to help Veterans which is why I'm fine now.

[snort]

16. Durango!

Woohoo! Fun place, aye?

[Kaleva]

21. have you considered going to court to be made your friend's legal guardian?

[Jakes Progress]

10. You are not informed about this.

I had experience with a number of people from that time who benefitted from the hospitals that raygun closed. There were cases where the hospitals did not do the right thing, but for the most part those who couldn't handle life in the commercial world were helped. Now they are made the problem of the families and the cities where they live. Look into how Denmark and Norway deal with the problem. And New Zealand. They have the programs that we had in the seventies. raygun was just doing the bidding of the aynrandites who elected him. Being born after raygun's attack on that part of our social net means you don't understand.

The VA is not the same thing. And closing the hospitals was just a part of raygun's trickle down efforts.

No. Not everyone on the streets is mentally disabled, but I work with many who are. Many. Every time the police are called to handle a mentally disturbed person that they are not trained to help, I can see that person in some of the people I work with. In 1978, there would have been a home for those people with caretakers trained to deal with them.

Between trickle down cruelty and beginning the end of unions, raygun was the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had - of course until 2016.

[AZProgressive]

12. Whatever

I know more about this than those without mental illness. Trashing thread and logging out of DU.

[byronius]

14. Well spoken.

I remember it well.

[ShazzieB]

18. I agree with you, Jakes Progress.

I am old enough to remember what went on during the Reagan administration and how much things changed with all the mental hospitals closing. It was a travesty and a tragedy.

[ShazamIam]

3. Remind the facebookies that Reagan and that anti-government gang promised the, free market,

would take care of the public housing. What was delivered was that awful voucher system where tax money ended up paying for garages and garden sheds and all manner of substandard housing.

All while blaming the poor for, poor choices, and the bad government they created and kept making worse.

[JI7]

6. There was a map showing the California economy compared to the rest

of the country. It got a lot of angry responses from right wingers who keep going on about how California is destroyed.

[leftstreet]

7. No

Nothing's been done to reverse MANY of that prick's policies. Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney changed the course of history for the working classes and no one since has done anything about it.

All of the funding for those 80s programs (like institutional care for the developmentally disabled etc) just got directed to private and "non profit" contractors who vacuum up the dollars while the clients they "serve" go without resources.

fuckers

[KPN]

23. Sums it up concisely!

[PurgedVoter]

17. My own experience making friends with mentally ill homeless people

When I went to UT in Austin they had free busing going on, so the homeless and mentally ill used it extensively as did I. I listened intently and said little because I did not want to agitate them. Listening to them I found that more than a few were Vietnam veterans that could not hold down jobs. When they described the events where they lost their jobs, the common thread was simple. They had great difficulty taking orders without questioning them. Their stories often ranged from wild to wildly impossible but I listened and I did not pass judgement. Their age and physical form matched with being Vietnam veterans but there were a few that I would believe were not if shown evidence. There were a lot of homeless in Austin that matched this profile at the time.

Read into this what you want. My own suspicion is that they followed orders and it did not work out for them. I think they faced ethical demons as a result. I think that broke them.

When a person cannot manage their day to day tasks consistently they need assistance and they need things simplified. When a person needs consistent medication they need a place and they need care. They don't need to be in a situation where it is easy for them to commit suicide by acting out in front of a LEO. It needs to be quite a bit more difficult to commit suicide by acting out in front of a LEO. Regan abandoned these people. There was no reform or aid. These people were abandoned. Our own side of the political equation has not done enough but the conservative side has done repeated harm.

Veteran or not, people are people and when a fellow tells you, straight up and expecting you to believe him, that he swallowed nuclear missiles and amazed the scientists watching, that person does not need to be managing his own accounting or medication. He needs, at the very least, a secure bed and three decent meals a day.

[ansible]

19. The real problem is our society to begin with that destroys our souls

I've met homeless people who're just so broken by this fucked up society of ours that they can never be functional. Mental hospitals aren't gonna help much when they get thrown out into the open again.

Sadly it's a fucked up situation all around and I have no solutions either. All I know is that prepare for the worse.

[KPN]

22. It's a terrible problem. I live in a red rural area in Oregon. We have a

huge homelessness problem for a community this size and it continues to get worse not better. We are far better isotopes to deal with the issue with Biden in the WH and an increasingly progressive Democratic Party controlling the House and Senate. At least there is hope when we have sane people who reflect the actual spirit of Christianity and other religious faiths running the country. If we can hold our position long enough, meaningful progress will be made on health care access/affordability, mental health and the homeless issue I’m sure.

[Demsrule86]

24. No, we have never had power long enough to get rid of this stuff...