( NewsNation ) — Republican Ohio Senator JD Vance was critical of former President Ronald Reagan ’s decision to cut mental health services decades ago, saying it has contributed to a present-day homelessness crisis.
During a NewsNation town hall Thursday, Vance said the “homelessness problem in this country, especially in our big cities, is completely out of control.”
“I’m going to criticize President Reagan going back 40 years because President Reagan made a decision to cut mental health care in this country, and the decision that we made collectively as a nation was to let people live on the streets instead of sometimes being committed to inpatient mental health facilities,” he said.
Vance appears to be referring to Reagan, a Republican, repealing the Mental Health Systems Act in 1981, which was signed by his predecessor, Democratic former President Jimmy Carter.
Under the Mental Health Systems Act, the government would have funded federal community mental health center programs first envisioned under President John F. Kennedy.