Alright, tell me let me if I have this straight: the process of deinstitutionalization can be attributed to a) new advancements in pharmacology, b) fiscal pressures on states, c) human rights concerns, and d) the government’s willingness to provide SSI and Medicaid checks to people. Homelessness was then, in turn, a function of deinstitutionalization because federal aid was not strong enough to ensure the stability of people who were straight out of “institutions.”
If I have all of that right, I find pointing to what should have happened difficult because there are so many factors at play here. Given the role of deinstitutionalization in the homeless crisis, one could argue that people should still be in institutions and that governing the treatment of mentally-ill people is invalid if it denotes leaving “crazy people” on the street. One could also argue that the federal government should’ve been held more responsible for providing a safety net for the newly-deinstitutionalized, or that, alternatively, mental hospitals should’ve never been subsidized by states in the first place, in that perhaps the federal government would’ve been better equipped to deal with them. I find the latter argument interesting because (I think) it would entail more of a socialized healthcare system and less emotional and financial burdens upon families with mentally-ill people within them. However, because I imagine that a system of mental hospitals subsidized by the federal government would last longer than such a system subsidized by individual states due to greater levels of financial stability, deinstitutionalization in this country might’ve occurred later, or not at all. My problem with arguing for federally-subsidized mental hospitals lies in that fact that I still don’t know what I think about the morality of putting people in mental hospitals. Am I arguing for keeping people in mental hospitals for a few decades longer if I’m arguing for federally-subsidized mental hospitals?
I guess I have three questions for y’all. Would you argue for the replacement of state mental hospitals with federally-subsidized ones way back when they were a thing? If so, do you think that means arguing for prolonging the process of deinstitutionalization, and would that be “moral?” Also, do you think this all maybe doesn’t matter because human-rights activists would’ve still pushed for deinstitutionalization anyway?