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Comment by m463 | Hacker News Reader

Same sort of thing happened with mental illness in california, probably a leading cause of homelessness problems.

Years ago, the law was changed to allow mentally-ill but benign or even non-ill people to escape the "snake pits", mental institutions that kept people incarcerated and drugged. This allowed lots of people to recover.

But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding.

Now clearly mentally ill people - who needed help - were turned away unless they were clearly "a danger to themselves and others".

Many homeless people are these mentally ill people, and they can't get help (and they can't be forced in unless they are dangerous, which is usually how recovery begins)

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This is a complete bullshit narrative, recently made popular by podcasts aimed at left leaning audiences ... because Reagan Bad is easy to sell when you're trying to run damage control for shitty governance/public policy. I have no doubt that's where you got it as well, and have parroted it many a time.

In reality, in the 1970s there was a series of landmark supreme court decisions that dealt with the civil rights of mentally ill, setting a very high bar for involuntary commitment. In California specifically, Short-Doyle act of '57 functionally defunded state run asylums, and Lanterman-Prentis-Short Act of '67 capped the length of involuntary commitment half a decade before the SCOTUS decisions.

http://n204xn214l.pbworks.com/f/Short-Doyle+Act.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%80...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addington_v._Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_v._Indiana

Yes, this is pretty much how it played out in other countries as well. Involuntary commitment has a very nasty history associated with it - rampant abuse, suicides, forced sterilization and lobotomies, untested electroshock therapy, unethical medical experimentation, pretty much every horrible human rights abuse that you can think of, up to and including genocide. By the 70s it had become socially untenable, and by the end of the century most countries had shuttered their publicly-run mental health institutions.

What is fascinating to me is that you can plainly see this evolution of thought play out in books, music and film. The portrayal of involuntary commitment slowly shifts from something that is normalized and somewhat necessary for society at the beginning of the 20th century, to something that is unabashedly evil by the end of it.

And it's so obvious as to why/how in retrospect

Everyone knows sending an innocent person to prison is really bad. But if you throw "they're not well..." in front of it and you have all the green lights you need.

>> Lanterman-Prentis-Short Act of '67 capped the length of involuntary commitment half a decade before the SCOTUS decisions

Mostly agree with your argument and I'm a Reagan fanboy, but Reagan did put his signature on that law. It was a bi-partisan bill (Lanterman was a Republican, Petris and Short were Democrats), and it passed with veto-proof near unanimous majorities, but he put his name on it.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-menta...

This nice timelime adds to what this person said.

There's more that helped shape the publics perception of mental health. The movie "One flew over the cukcoos nest" seemed to create a negative perception about these facilities.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1983.53.1.1...

This study in 1983, though small, showed that 4 out of 5 people who were questioned before the film was released ,then after, changed their view of mental institutions to negative. They also showed them a TV documentary that was more factual about the mental health system but it didn't have an impact.

In my opinion this is case of the public hearing about a systemtic issue within a very nessacary institution, regardless of how frequent or serious, becoming upset, locking their view in, then the government taking action by either reducing or eliminating that institution.

There were movies before Cuckoo's Nest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies

Sure, but we've all heard of Cuckoo's Nest, very few have heard of the others.

There were a number of scandals and exposes during that time including Geraldo Rivera making a name for himself with his investigations of the Willowbrook State School in NY. The closure of such institutions was very much a national movement.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

If there were scandals at fire departments around the country would you eliminate some or all of them?

It's the same with mental institutions. There are people who should be committed for the rest of their lives and nothing, short of curing them, changes that

I don’t disagree that institutions should be part of the equation. I was just expanding on the earlier comment.

You're right. I read into your comment and assumed you meant that the closing were justified

Unironically good. Ken Kesey is a saint. For as bad as the current situation is, being stuck in mental institutions of that quality (which most were) is far worse.

How's it working out for these folks?

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/couple-attacked-man-killed-...

https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/suspect-charged-sou...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10492101/Moment-hom...

I guess, fine for them, bad for us.

They'll end up confined anyway, just a lot of collateral damage on the way.

hmm like the effect Jaws had on sharks.

Reagan left office in 1975 and there have been several governors since then. But governors don’t set funding - state congresses do so you need to try to blame something else after about 45 years

> But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding.

> Now clearly mentally ill people - who needed help - were turned away unless they were clearly "a danger to themselves and others".

It's been 50 years between then and now, so... why has no other politician increased it if the funding cut was the problem?

Because of a ballot initiative that essentially made it impossible to raise taxes.

That is not the reason that spending on mental illness can not be increased.

I mean, yes it is, unless you have equivalent cuts somewhere else you're willing to make that can get through the legislature.

I know what you mean, it's just wrong. Spending on mental health is not tied to tax rates constitutionally such that politicians can't change it. They're probably glad not to change it because misinformed voters think it's still Reagan's fault.

Prop 63 did raise taxes and a budget proposal worth billions is now weaving its way through the legislature. So not true that they couldn’t raise taxes because they did

“One flew over the cuckoo's nest” - back in the days, the state went a bit overboard with forced mental care, and there was a lot of political pressure to dismantle the system.

And how long has it been that Reagan is no longer the governor and why hasn't funding been restored?

I'm afraid that's not how bureaucracy works.

Then maybe it’s time to replace it with something that works.

CA also in that time passed a ballot initiative that made it essentially impossible to raise taxes. It's also the reason college got so expensive.

they don't need to raise taxes -- California has run huge budget surpluses

Only very recently. We're talking about over the past half-century

No the California budget is famously boom and bust (currently running large deficits) because it relies on income taxes instead of property taxes, the former of which vary a lot with economic conditions while the latter don’t.

They should start taxing wealth, as many of the wealthiest people have a tiny income in proportion to their wealth.

Wealth taxes* are economically inefficient, impossible to administer, and have little popular support. Consider this: a land value tax is the best (and only good) type of wealth tax, and the people of California hated it so much they voted it out on the ballot!

* Outside of LVT.

This is true, however it was still a property tax (appreciation of course is due to land but the disincentive on improvements is still there), it was poorly administered (long periods between assessments) and it was during the extreme inflation of the 70's.

This is definitely an issue with levying LVT at fairly low rates. Granted, at the time it was relatively high but it wasn't high enough. The 'ideal' LVT would bring down the price of land -considerably-, close to $0. The fact that land still has a large selling price means it is still largely financed with loans, and sensitive to interest rate adjustments.

College became unreasonably expensive after student loan amounts were increased by the federal government and co-singers were eliminated. It was decided that everyone should have access to higher education and it's been a mess since then.

Reagan was governor from 1967-1975. Clearly he changed this so permanently that it’s impossible for anyone to fix in 45 years.

I suppose that is an impressive feat to do something that no other governors can fix.

Or perhaps they don’t want to fix it since they can just blame Reagan and then pretend it’s unsolvable.

So essentially the homeless and mentally ill in the U.S are incentivized to be dangerous, explains a lot

It was so even at the beginning of last century, if you believe O.Henry.

He has a short novel about man who tries to get arrested and convicted to be in jail for winter. He attempted to rob a person, broke the window glass and finally got his arrest for loitering, if I remember correctly.

But then the question is why is there more mentally ill people than in other countries. I know that many homeless people come there from other states because of the easy winters, but then i would assume something similar in europe as well. Spain has many homeless people as well, but there is fewer of them.

There are the same number of mentally unwell people. Mental illness typically follows normal distributions sans PTSD in war torn countries. The difference is the approach. Most European countries use a carrot and stick approach. There are no laws guaranteeing the homeless the right to live on the sidewalk, as there is in California. They can be fined or arrested here in Denmark for doing that. Ditto for begging. So they don’t congregate in large numbers in cities and there are no tents. Further, drug possession and distribution is prosecuted. The penalties are scary enough for the hard drugs to discourage broad use.

That’s the stick. The carrot is a generous welfare system which isn’t afraid of invasive intervention. Those deemed a danger to others or themselves can be detained for treatment. Involuntary commitment has virtually disappeared in many US states. Mental health treatment is also free, so there isn’t a barrier to access (though lately it has become harder to access treatment which isn’t considered acute).

Eh, the ban on begging in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries is so they can throw out the professional beggars. Often called anti-Roma laws since they're one of the main perpetrators of this type of organized begging.

That’s clearly part of the problem in both Denmark and California. However it seems to have solved almost all visible homelessness, including homelessness related to mental health.

I have no idea about the history of California's mental-illness funding, so I have no idea if your comment is accurate and Reagan is actually the bad guy (although I suspect it's more complicated).

However, California has run massive surpluses lately: The average ending balance from 2006 through the 2019-20 fiscal year was a surplus of about $2.8 billion; for 2020 through 2022-23 it was more than $37.5 billion.

So why doesn't Newsom, or his predecessors, re-establish the funding? Clearly it isn't a priority to them either.

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/06/13/californias-b...

I would not want my state to establish funding because then it would become other states’ dumping grounds.

California is in a weird place due to the weather, which almost guarantees the self dumping of people living outdoors. I'd be curious to see how this factors into these equations. Much of Europe gets pretty cold in winter.

Weird in what way? There's a dozen with higher average minimum temperatures, several with not signifiantly more rain (or less, Texas).

The average you’re looking for can hide a lot of distributions. Texas gets both extremely hot and cold in a way California does not.

Iirc California has the most "nice" days on average of any state. "Nice" = between around 60°-80°F and Sunny. If you want to spend the whole year outdoors California is the best state to do it in.

Wet bulb temperatures and dew point are what determine how comfortable it is outdoors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_meridian_west

> In the United States, this meridian roughly marks the boundary between the semi-arid climate in the west and the humid continental and humid subtropical climates in the east and is used as shorthand to refer to that arid-humid boundary.

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