The sense I get from our "leaders" is the addicted, the ill, and the homeless, are a nuisance to be gotten rid of. They pay lip service to "treatment" to make it palatable to most people, but, considering the cost involved, I suspect the plan is to simply get them out of sight.

Again, perhaps in Michigan. But in California and New York and elsewhere, there is a growing shift in thinking even among people who do not regard the homeless as merely a nuisance. Rather, they're revisiting the assumption that the most humane to do with someone who is suffering from, say, acute schizophrenia is to leave them to fend for themselves on the streets if they refuse treatment.

There's also a growing sense that the public impacts of letting someone with untreated acute schizophrenia fend for themselves on the streets are more serious than a mere "nuisance" - particularly when there are large numbers of such folks. This is a situation that is both terrible for the individuals involved and terrible for the general public.

Put more succinctly, the policy of allowing people with severe mental illness or acute drug dependency choose their own course of treatment (often none at all) isn't working for either the people so afflicted or the public at large.

Whether institutionalization is any better will depend on the details. But there's now a greater acceptance that the status quo is unacceptable. Coupled with a belief that giving people with acute mental illness or severe drug dependency free reign over public spaces cannot be managed in a way that's compatible with both maximal freedom for that population and safe public use of those spaces once populations get too high.