In June 2011, James Verone, a 59 year old unemployed man from North Carolina, robbed a bank for $1 to get medical care in jail. Without health insurance and suffering from multiple health issues, he couldn’t afford treatment

[u/truly-immaculate]

[u/Rare-Low-8945]

IM not denying the impact of the Reagan era policies, but society has also just changed SO MUCH since then. The opiod crisis has completely changed the landscape on its own, not even to mention the economic conditions that lower-class and middle-class people have endured gradually over the last 40 years.

Less childcare, increased cost of living, inadequate minimum wage, and on top of that is increased trauma.

It's very complex. While we can point to a period in time where we know things "changed", there have been a lot of other factors in society outside of economic policy as well.

TONNNNS of people on the streets suffer from complex mental illnesses with addiction on top of it. Even without addiction, lots of people really do not have the skills to hold regular jobs or function in society beyond a very basic level.

We do need more robust addiction treatment and mental health treatment, but as you mentioned, Raegan defunded a lot of the mental health programs that kept some of these folks off the streets.

When you've been in and out of foster care, have trauma, addiction issues, and a diagnosis like schizophrenia or Bipolar, and don't come from circumstances that ever prepared you for the skills needed to hold a job...where do those people go? If they don't have family to house them or pay for treatment, they are on the streets, and no, they can't even hold a job at McDonalds sadly.

SOME, with a lot of support and treatment, WILL be able to hold a basic job (and I've seen this as well). IT often takes a lot of time and several rounds of charity and treatment with specific life circumstances to eventually lead someone to that.

While many high fliers go in and out of jail and live a miscreant life, the reality is the taxpayers don't want to fund solutions that take a lot of time and resources, because even with those social supports, there will ALWAYS be bottom feeders who take advantage and don't end up contributing. Emotionally, I get it but when you run the numbers, it often makes a lot more sense. Taxpayers don't have the attention span or the intelligence to tolerate those longer term solutions especially when the hard reality is, a certain percentage will simply always be a suck on the system. IT doesn't matter how cost effective other solutions are, taxpayers just can't swallow the emotional pill of "bankrolling" the bottom feeders.

I'm not saying the emotion is wrong, especially when so many programs actually end up ineffective. Its really just a hard sell to the avergae taxpayer that doesn't understand trauma, addiction, mental health, and the cost of jailing these people over and over.

[u/vistaculo → u/Rare-Low-8945]

Reagan, as governor, did damage to the state of California that we are still dealing with.

[u/Regular_Yellow710 → u/vistaculo]

My Republican great-aunts loathed Reagan.

[u/1in8-billion → u/vistaculo]

Regan was a Republican President in the 1980s…..that was 45 years ago and you blame this for the problems of today? Insane! This mess is in 2025 with Democrats destroying California!

[u/testificates → u/1in8-billion]

Well... yes. If you make a problem 45 years ago and nobody manages to fix it, it's still a problem today. A ton of homeless don't just up and disappear because it becomes boring and old news after they were kicked out of mental hospitals decades ago. That's what's so scary about short sighted and ignorant policy, you will still get your ass kicked by it decades later because of the slow momentum when making such massive, sweeping changes. And it takes magnitudes more effort to fix than destroy.

[u/Toroceratops → u/1in8-billion]

You may want to sit down for this one: things that happened in the past continue to affect us today. Crazy, right?

[u/ls20008179 → u/1in8-billion]

California had free college for residents until Reagan

[u/1in8-billion → u/ls20008179]

Free college is not free….the taxpayers paid for it!

[u/ls20008179 → u/1in8-billion]

No shit Sherlock it was an objectively good use of taxpayer dollars and much like literally everything Reagan ever touched he ruined it. He gutted unions, started the crack epidemic by turning a blind eye to the child killing gun runners he was funding by selling missiles to Iran, invaded Grenada for a week and got thousands more killed by ignoring the aids epidemic. We are dealing with the fallout from all of that and more to this day.

[u/Overthemoon64 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

A few weeks ago, someone pointed out to me on a different thread that the minimum IQ to join the military is 81. The maximum IQ needed to be on disability or a group home situation for intellectual disability is like 61 or something. What are these people, who are too dumb to pass the ASVAB, supposed to do?

I think a lot of us have worked with coworkers who were just not competent or functional human beings. Thats why I support social safety nets. It would be great if they could get food and medical care abd a little bit of money without totally fucking up my workplace.

[u/Koalatime224 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

While many high fliers go in and out of jail and live a miscreant life, the reality is the taxpayers don't want to fund solutions that take a lot of time and resources, because even with those social supports, there will ALWAYS be bottom feeders who take advantage and don't end up contributing. Emotionally, I get it but when you run the numbers, it often makes a lot more sense. Taxpayers don't have the attention span or the intelligence to tolerate those longer term solutions especially when the hard reality is, a certain percentage will simply always be a suck on the system. IT doesn't matter how cost effective other solutions are, taxpayers just can't swallow the emotional pill of "bankrolling" the bottom feeders.

You're right with pretty much everything you said, but this part missed the mark by a little. It's not that people don't or can't understand that funding long-term projects to alleviate those issues is the right way to do it. They don't want to "bankroll" those people, yes, but not because they need the money. It's more so that they need those "bottom feeders" to exist. They don't necessarily want them in their backyard but they sure as hell want them to be around somewhere. Why? Simply put, they just love to feel superior. It's so much easier to tolerate hardships if you think about how it could be worse. It's so much easier to be appreciative of what you have if you think about how you deserve to have it because the have-nots are all lazy bums while you are a hard worker who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. It's a simple concept that I would assume we are all aware of to some degree but conveniently ignore most of the time.

You can see it all around in other facets of life too. People like to moan about reality TV but those shows are successful because people love watching them to feel superior. We never got rid of freak shows they just look different these days.

[u/propyro85 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

I'm a paramedic in a medium-large Canadian city. You've pretty much summed up about 70% of my daily calls. Dog shit access to health care, super precarious housing situations, inadequate income support and a host of aforementioned trauma and chronic health issues has lead to the 911 system being a lot of people's means of accessing some sort of primary care and/or self medicating the shit out of themselves.

We spent 2 years in school training to manage people having acute heart attacks, critical sepsis, difficulty breathing and cardiac arrests. Instead, that 70% of my calls I mentioned earlier is basically me being shoe horned into being a social worker with none of the training and support a social worker has. All because we've been stripping away pretty much every public service and selling it for scrap parts to the private sector for the last 30 years.

However, despite how frustrating this typically is, the once in a blue moon where these social work heavy calls look like it may result in the person getting access to a much needed resource, it's actually really satisfying.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/propyro85]

I'm a teacher and, yep, same. So much of my day is just behavior management and social work rather than just teaching.

[u/theillusionofdepth_ → u/Rare-Low-8945]

During Reagan’s Administration, he had used “Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration” written by the Heritage Foundation; the same organization that wrote Project 2025. All of this has been designed and implemented by the same hand.

[u/North_Phrase4848 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

Someone opined to me on another social media platform that the Reagan administration cannot be blamed for the increase of mental health crises. They claimed that it was decided by the reduction of documented soiciopathy/psycopathy [currently referred to as antisocial personality disorder] and funding should be provided by each state. While they may have a point, by cutting federal funding to the states, something's gonna break. It's interesting how no one in the US Legislature ever funded a study post Reaganism mental health monetary cuts with the increased violence of school mass murderers.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/North_Phrase4848]

I've been discussing this for the last day with my husband.

There are a good number of people on the streets who, if they CHOSE and had resources, could eventually clean up and get their life together. You have to fund that shit.

There are also a huge number of folks who are not able to live a normal life, hold a job, etc for a lot of reasons, and then often drugs or alcohol become an issue on top of it. This is the more complex, long term, and very expensive option to figure out how to rehabiliate these people and find ways for them to participate in society to any kind of functional level, even if they aren't completely independent.

Mental health like Schizoaffective disorders, bipolar, etc, are incredibly complex to treat and take time and consistency, and won't come with a magic fix like a free hotel room or a couple weeks of therapy.

I don't have the answers, but either way you slice it the taxpayers will have to pony up: repeated jailing, cleaning up the streets, prison time....or long term projects that rely on sustained and consistent funding to have any hope of being effective.

People like to rag on Seattle or Portland or San Fran because the state legislature have passed bills like decriminalizing drug use or homelessness, which, if you've visited certain parts recently, absolutely just enables the issue because the OTHER SIDE of the solution is either only funded for a brief time, never gets the full funding it needs to be effective, or just isn't funded at all.

If you're going to legislate with one arm, you need to implement programs on the other. And it takes a lot of time--far longer than any Mayoral or state Rep term of office.

[u/North_Phrase4848 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

Absolutely. What also infuriates me is how the media and the entertainment industry tosses out the words "sociopath" and "psychopath". As you stated, these are disorders (among many) that are incredibly difficult to treat because the symptoms often defy 20th century definition. But, until "antisocial personality disorder" becomes a really cool buzzword [sarcasm], most of us will keep swallowing what they think we want eat.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/North_Phrase4848]

If you're a nerd like me, there's a very interesting book about sociopathy called "Sociopath: A Memoir" and the author has done interviews you can see on YouTube. She is a diagnosed sociopath and a PhD is psychology. Her philosophy is that ASPD and "sociopathy" are likely much more common than we currently believe, but that there is treatment and a way for people like this to live productive lives.

I worked with a kid with diagnosed Reactive Attachment Disorder, which is a childhood diagnosis, and often gets rebranded in adulthood as ASPD. It is SCARY. RADs is pretty extreme and rare, but it also made me think differently about kids who have been thru similar trauma and what their life trajectory would be like and how their experiences rewire their brain. I mean, hell, my husband has made a career out of working with kids like this who can't even be in a normal classroom except with an aids and very specific plan.

Kids like this need very intensive intervention for many years, and that's even without the presence of trauma and addiction, which many will never have the privilege to be free of. So then you have to think: what should the outcome look like? What is best case scenario?

My husband and his team view the best case scenario as someone who is able to hold a job--literally ANY JOB, for any amount of time, and be somewhat independent without being repeated criminals. That is absolute best case. Some kids can break the mold and recover with supports, medications, and therapy, and go on to college or a steady job and food relationships, but those are the outliers.

At the very least, can we produce someone who can work at Taco Bell and pay their rent without being a menace to society. That is the goal.

The wild thing is, the only reason why this program exists is because our VERY SMALL TOWN funds it. Many school districts have no such programs.

[u/North_Phrase4848 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

Thanks. I just ordered the book.

[u/chamrockblarneystone → u/Rare-Low-8945]

All they need to do is walk down a few city streets in Europe to quickly realize the benefits of social welfare reform.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/chamrockblarneystone]

Be careful because the crime stats like rape in places like Sweden sway heavily towards immigrant Muslims. And Western Europe is navigating its own special breed of home grown terrorists and extremists.

My brother is a naturalized Swede and we have spoken of this many times. Certain Europeans don't want to admit the limitations or flaws in their social policies (we are both far left progressive even socialist in some aspects, but let's call a spade a spade. Many Europeans are entirely unprepared to deal with the tiger they have by the tail)

[u/chamrockblarneystone → u/Rare-Low-8945]

I have not examined this but I believe you. At this stage I’m just talking about how average city streets where people need to be, are safe and clean.

Not so much in NYC or LA. We’re tripping over homeless and constantly witnessing mentally ill people doing horrific things.

This rarely happens in the many major European cities I’ve visited.

Are there problems with incoming immigrants and crime everywhere? Certainly. It’s how humanely you handle this problem that reveals what kind of people you are.

Sadly Anerica is not looking so good these days.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/chamrockblarneystone]

We can agree on many things. I have endless compassion and understanding for the suffering of others and the plight of the vulnerable.

I also don’t love walking through town stepping over needles and feces lol.

[u/chamrockblarneystone → u/Rare-Low-8945]

Well that’s why I was suggesting the European model. Much more humane treatment for mentally ill and homeless and no needles or feces.

[u/malary1234 → u/Rare-Low-8945]

He the start of the downfall of the USA, the first useful idiot.

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/malary1234]

Who is? Who are you talking about?

The START of the downfall? Honey we've been on this trajectory for YEARS and people have been screaming from the rooftops about it, but COVID and BLM riots for better or for worse finally brought these issues to the forefront.

Teachers and social workers have been doing everything they can for at least 2 decades at this point to bring attention to these kinds of issues. Have the school shootings not been enough?