Reply to Is it illegal for public libraries to ban homeless and drug addicts?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Was it always like this? As a child and young teen I was always in the library (usually Chevy Chase, Wheaton, or Tenleytown) and I don't remember anything like this. Is it because I was in the children's room or oblivious? [/quote]

Possibly two reasons...
The burbs of DC don't have that many homeless, or did not in the past.

And, if you were a child before Reagan became President, there were still mental institutions available to house patients long term, instead of being out in the community.

I don't remember so many homeless as a child, but after the 80s there was a definite uptick.[/quote]

It is incorrect to say 'Reagan closed the mental institutions.' Deinstitutionalization was a wider longer term movement and much of it was motivated on humanitarian grounds that institutionalization was inhumane. Also, many institutions were state hospitals, so those decisions were taken at the state not federal level. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation

Moreover, there were certainly homeless in the 70s and 80s and lots of junkies in those years as well. Prostitutes also plied their trade on the streets instead of the net so you could add them to the general mix of street life.[/quote]

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