Homelessness people

Modern homelessness started as a result of economic stresses in society and reductions in the availability of affordable housing such as single room occupancies (SROs) for poorer people.[citation needed] In the United States, in the 1970s, the deinstitutionalisation of patients from state psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor that seeded the homeless population, especially in large cities like New York City.[36] This theory is vigorously disputed by clinical psychologist Seth Farber who points out that "the emptying of the state mental hospitals took place almost entirely in the 1960s and 1970s," a decade or more before the steep rise in homelessness which began in the late 1980s.[37] Some feel that Ronald Reagan's signing (as governor of California in 1967) of the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act greatly exacerbated homelessness among the mentally ill. This law lowered the standards for involuntary commitment in civil courtrooms and was followed by significant de-funding of 1700 hospitals caring for mental patients