Usually it is productive for left and right to get together on a common reform; but, not always. Instead of getting the best of both perspectives, you can get the worst of both. That is what happened in the early 70s when liberals who wanted to free the occasional sane person from mental hospitals teamed up with conservatives who wanted to save the money they thought was being wasted on state hospitals for the mentally ill.
"De-institutionalization" may have offered freedom to the unusual person who had been confined unwisely, but it resulted in many more people with disabling mental conditions being set loose on the streets.
We wound up liberating people with serious disorders from those who could help them, and ending the relative minor costs of mental institutions and greatly adding to the costs of emergency health care, police protection and assorted housing and food expenses. Addled street people can be, and often are, dangerous to others. And the homeless can wind up dead. Read Mike Johnson of the Union Gospel's Mission's account and ask yourself why public officials are not addressing this problem in the ways he describes.
Can't liberals and conservatives come together again: this time to find a pathway--not backward to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--but forward to humane, common sense policies that provide long term mental care for some and part time care for others? There are many homeless people who aren't insane, of course, but it would be a huge improvement for those who are mentally ill--and for the homeless problem overall--if they were separated out and provided treatment.
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