Roaming instead of in an institution? You can thank Ronald Reagan for that. His Republican group shut down not only psychiatric hospitals but half way houses. I know you know what a psychiatric hospital does (dx and tx and research if they can) but half way houses were “manned” by men and women with the training to help men and women who could not keep on a medication schedule and who could be talked “down” from whereever they got to that caused them to do what we call crazy stuff. What a disaster the loss of the hospitals and half way houses has been and it continues to today.
Now, I am a conservative and have been for 60 years and I was fairly young when Reagan did that closing of all that was keeping the insane and mentally ill from your doorstep. It would be a very good idea to reinstitute all of it.
My memory is that Reagan did that after a LOT of push by Democrats.
Not quite. He had no choice. The ACLU went to court and won their case that resulted in all of the mental institutions closed.