The homeless problem in California can be traced in part back to the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act which was passed in 1967 and signed by Reagan.

A short history of the problems with this act, and the civil liberties origins of it, can be found here. (scroll down to the "History of LPS" section.)

The entire thing was another piece of well-meaning social engineering, and while the truth is not as attractive to the Left as the overwhelming myth of Reagan booting all the homeless out of hospitals, it should be brought up now and then just for a change of pace.

...The research leader was Dorothy Miller, an adherent of Erving Goffman who postulated a phenomenological argument that denied mental illness as anything more than a condition caused by institutionalization. Goffman's theories permeated the Dilemma Report, just as they had flooded popular imagination through Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Another popular sociologist used as reference for the investigation was Thomas Scheff, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who esoterically promulgated a theory that while many people might exhibit symptoms of mental illness, these people are no more than residual rule breakers and mental illness only exists as a label -- or a definition -- by group culture for its "social losers." He later became known as the "father of the labeling theory."

Other influences included R.D. Laing, who argued that mental illness is a socio-political event and once compared schizophrenia to a self-enlightening acid trip, and Thomas Szasz, who published, in popular magazines, his flamboyant argument that mental illness is a myth used by totalitarian governments to gain social control.

The sociological confusion surrounding the nature of mental illness in the 1960s was well stated in The Dilemma Report which said, "The term 'mental illness' is a nonscientific, generalized popular label used to describe a wide range of behavior which is considered 'peculiar' or 'sick' or objectionable . . . it does not reveal the cause of any individual's difficulty. . . . It is also evident that when a person's behavior is labeled 'mental illness,' those who do the labeling are guided by their own concepts of what is normal and abnormal. Madness, like beauty, may exist in the eye of the beholder. . . .Despite all these uncertainties the general public, its elected representatives and civil servants have perpetuated the commitment court and mental hospital system as a means of disposing of a variety of disagreeable social problems."

The Dilemma Report proposed doing away with the entire commitment scheme, removing reference to "need for treatment" and replacing the criteria with strictly limited behavioral standards. However, the report observed, "Most people who believe themselves to be mentally ill, or whom others believe to be mentally ill, do have some kind of problem and may benefit from some kind of assistance."

Liberal gobbledygook from one end to the other. Yet all that's remembered now is that Governor Reagan signed the bill.

And if there was a single mental health program that was reduced or eliminated under Reagan as President, please point it out.