In CA if someone is an immediate harm to themselves they can still be involuntarily held. Not sure the exact standard that must be met but Wikipedia says they must be "a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and/or gravely disabled." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5150_(involuntary_psychiatri...
The problem is preventing people from getting into that situation in the first place, usually because they are not adequately treating their condition with medications. Better long term care and follow up would help a lot with that.
There are parallels here to healthcare-by-emergency-room versus actually having healthy people.
It's obvious that we should commit people who wave around guns and think there are Martians in their teeth. But there are also homeless people who just get agitated, verbally abusive, and mildly violent on a semi-regular but certainly dysfunctional basis. How do we help them, and barring that, how do we protect others, including other people who live in the same shelters?
Yes, I'd say having more social workers on the streets and shelters following up and offering care options for those who are mentally ill and dysfunctional would help the problem. But there's not really funding for that.
I've heard a lot of stories from friends of mine who work in the field, and the picture they paint is that a big problem is bureaucracy/'managerial class'. It's a very similar and equally ugly picture that is painted by the friends I have in academia.
What I find interesting (and tragic) is that it doesn't seem to primarily be about funding, but rather about the system that has grown around them, full of inefficiencies and 'false' measurement-based methodology.
The problem is preventing people from getting into that situation in the first place, usually because they are not adequately treating their condition with medications. Better long term care and follow up would help a lot with that.