How do you balance individual, constitutional rights with the need to help people who are ill.

We either force people to undergo treatment, or leave them alone to live in a cardboard box, scream at mailboxes, and self medicate with heroin and amphetamines.

I have heard, and am swayed, by arguments on both sides. I tend to lean in the direction of getting people help (maybe against their will), but at the moment we have zero infrastructure to accomplish that in a remotely humane way. We have some short-term systems in place, but they don't extend beyond the duration of a 51-50 hold.

Enough voters are not confronted with the issue of homelessness and mental illness on a regular enough basis for it to have become a national talking point, but damned if it shouldn't be.