>>23564572 lb
>How did streets become mental hospitals?
Several, if not all, of those videos are not U.S. locations, but we have our share!
When Reagan was Governor of California and a policy decision was made to open the doors of the institutions and let everyone out, and shut down the institutions.
-
Alleged Constitutional rights violations.
-
Held against their will, many of them (which is what a mental health against your will is, i.e., based on a "professional assessment"),
-
Likely abuse and neglect going on - as they will proliferate behind closed doors, especially when the victims are "off" and can be dismissed as dreaming or seeking attention when they complain, i.e., the elderly, infirm, drugged up, mentally ill - unless GOOD people get and stay in charge and vet everyone and take all complaints seriously- even though elderly, mentally ill, etc. The staff needs to be protected from false accusations. AND those being cared for need to be protected from predators.
-
The cost. The cost. The cost. (Did I say, "The cost"?)
Anon remembers thinking. "Good Lord, help us! Surely there must be a middle ground between do-nothing-to-fix-the-problems with the institutions, on the one hand, and open the doors, release everyone onto the streets, and lock the doors."
To Anon's memory, it was basically the latter.
Quick search found a thorough recap:
Sauce
The Republican who emptied the asylums
By DAN MORAIN posted 10.24.2024
"RonaldReagan is most often credited or blamed for emptying state mental hospitals, and subsequently failing to provide adequate care for former patients or people who in years past would have been patients. In reality, Gov. Reagan took his cue from Lanterman.
…"Lanterman, who died in 1981, has mostly faded from public view but for two laws that serve as twin tombstones – the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 1967 and the Lanterman Act of 1969. They were first-in-the-nation measuresadopted with noble intentions and signed into law by Gov. Reagan,though they were hardly Reagan’s ideas.
"The Lanterman Act of 1969 and successor measures focused on people with developmental disabilities such as Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism, and established that they are entitled to cradle to grave care.
"State hospitals that once housed more than 10,000 people with developmental disabilities have all but closed. The Department of Developmental Services operates on a budget of $15.8 billion this year and oversees care for 360,000 individuals who live in communities and are assisted by staff at 21 nonprofit regional centers spread across California.
"The other piece of Lanterman’s legacy, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 1967, is at best an unfinished work. The 1967 law, whichfocuses on people with mental illness such as schizophrenia,was revolutionary for its time. It guarantees basic rights to people who, because of brain disease, damage, or abnormality, had been stripped of fundamental rights. Foremost among those rights, they could refuse help so long as authorities did not deem them to pose a danger to themselves or others, or to be gravely disabled.
"Lanterman knew thatgiven a choice, most patients would opt to leave asylums. But he intended that the money saved by emptying state hospitals would pay for patients’ needs in their communities.
He achieved one goal, not the other.
"The governor, Lanterman and all the legislators who voted in near unanimity for the measure could easily justify their action.It was the progressive thing to do. Leading experts concluded thatstate hospitals were little more than warehousesand people could only get well outside such institutions. California was the first to pass such a law.In the years to come, virtually every state in the union took similar action.
… "Providing an entitlement to mental health care, like the entitlement for care for people with developmental disabilities, would not be cheap.
"As Californians can see, however,costs come in different ways.There is a cost to jailing an individual with severe mental illness. There’s also a cost to having 180,000 people living on the streets or in temporary shelters, many of them suffering from brain disorders.
Californians end up paying, indirectly and directly.
The meter has been running since 1967.
[Anon comment - More than once, including in a quote from Newscum, people acknowledge Reagan is blamed, and was at the helm signing both laws into existence, but the legislators and his predecessor Governor reportedly did the lion's share of the legislative legwork and lobbying to make it happen.No one disputes the results have been disastrous for would-be patients and for the public.]
Moar:
https://capitolweekly.net/the-republican-who-emptied-the-asylums/