Goomba wrote:

> There is a lot of blame placed on Reagan here that is hardly his fault.
> During the time he's accused of de-institutionalizing psych patients,
> ALL states were cutting their funding (NOT just California) and this all
> began before Reagan became president.

We had the same thing up here. There was a time when people who were
unable to take care of themselves or who were a danger to themselves
were committed to institutions. Some thought that was bad thing so they
let a lot of them out. Now they are roaming the streets and have no
place to stay. Then there are the pan handlers who tend to be young
people who left their homes in smaller towns and cities and headed to
larger cities where pickings were better for panhandling and they fell
into a bad life.

It wasn't that long ago that there were vagrancy laws. We didn't have
street people back then because they would toss them in jail.