There are tons of folks out there like this. Some time ago, after the ACLU got their ruling from the supremes that holding folks in an institution just because they were crazy was not good enough there were quite a few people of varying degrees of reality let loose. Now the "system" is set to hold only those who are adjudicated a hazard to themselves or others. The problem is that ruling is almost never handed down prior to some schmuck having his brain and eyeball eaten by said looney toon dude. In addition to that the ruling also says that if the individual cannot be tried because he is a looney toon he must be held until he is. Unfortunately that doesn't always hold either.
In my almost 2 decades of dealing with folks in enforcement situations I have found there are quite a few folks, homeless because they are unemployable, mobile because they are homeless and unmedicated because all of the above, running around. Treating them with meds is fine. Problem is in the real world, not some utopian pipe dream, they don't stay medicated for the previously listed reasons. Some also seem to like being crazy because as soon as they can get out of forced treatment they split and stop taking their meds. Again until they are found consuming another victims brain and eyeball they are not forcibly incarcerated.
A few also try to get their court mandated treatment options changed like hinkley. Just because he shot a president, killed a cop and turned a reporter into a poster child for the anti gun crowd does not mean he should be kept off of the streets according to his lawyer. He should have more access to visit dear old mom, unsupervised of course, and plenty of time outside of the hospital the court sentenced him to. If you think he's all safe and stuff I invite you to have him stay with you and your family for a few weeks.
That guy out there on the corner with the cardboard sign may not be a homeless vet down on his luck. It might just be the guy that bums around the country hacking on folks he / she finds and simply has not been found out yet.
