Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime.

San Francisco is trying a new approach but has only managed to get ONE person into conservatorship in the last 2 years because of all the roadblocks put up by a group called "The Coalition on Homelessness".

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conservatorship-off-to-a-slo...

To give you an idea, you have to be 5150'ed (aka put on a psychiatric health hold) 8 times in order to receive inpatient treatment. 8 times. If you told someone they'd have to try to kill themselves 8 times before they got help, they'd probably call you nuts.

> Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime.

I'm still not seeing what that do with "Reagan".

If it's a law he instituted, that law could be changed back, yes?

No, the ACLU sued and its now the law of the land, its probably impossible to undue. Uninformed people blame Reagan for "closing the institutions" but you can't have an institution and nobody to put in it...