From: "Gary Wiltshire" 

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:50:35 -0500, Rich Gauszka  wrote:

> Closing the mental health facilities definitely had an affect on the
> homeless population. I see it every day on the downtown streets.
>
> It isn't the only problem as you point out but it did exacerbate the
> mentally ill roaming the streets problem.
>
>
The point GB was making was that the facilities were already in oversupply
once the pols started "mainstreaming" the mentally ill into
society by making it harder to lock them up.  There are lots and lots of
facilities that had to be closed (or drastically downsized, even a heavy
hitter like McLean) because of the large number of empty beds.  There are
large areas now though without enough beds, especially for juvenile cases.

--
Gary Wiltshire

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