Yes, JFK emptied the mental hospitals with the last bill he signed in 1963, but the homeless, the bums, the drifters, the winos, have always existed, just in lessor numbers.
Even the Soviet Union could not keep homeless men from existing.
Police recruits ... Any policeman, does NOT want to take care of the mentally ill.
It’s demeaning. And it is not a job for a man with a gun.
I blame this on the City of Los Angeles.