Why was Reagan hated?

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/

In this blog post, we are going to be looking at why Reagan was not well regarded by many Americans during his presidential reign. His involvement within the Mental Illness area was poorly handled. It was almost instantaneously that when Reagan became president, the Mental Heath Systems Act was repealed, an Act that was proposed by his predecessor Jimmy Carter, that would have continued funding federal community mental health centres. This basically eliminated services for people who were struggling with mental illness. 

This article suggests that Reagan wasn’t really sure how to deal with the mental health epidemic, “President Reagan never understood mental illness. Like Richard Nixon, he was a product of the Southern California culture that associated psychiatry with Communism.” 

There was definitely seemed to be a correlation with the release of institutionalised mental health patients in the 1980’s and the significant number of homelessness agencies created in the 1980s. It was also when the historical event in 1986 “Hands across America’” was created in the hopes to combat the problem of homelessness. It was met with much political controversy as Reagan participated in the event, it helped to serve as a contradiction for his action in repealing the laws that was a contributor to the problem in the first place.