High rates of mental illness among the growing, visible, urban homeless population provoke public pressure to "do something" to eliminate this "public nuisance." Conviction and jailing on misdemeanor charges provide only temporary incarceration in already overcrowded local jails; and since the 1970's restrictive civil commitment standards have limited the availability of civil commitment to hospitalize nonviolent mentally ill people. To encourage development of community-based mental health services and reduce the fiscal domination of State mental hospitals, some States have decentralized funding of mental health services. Under decentralization, county officials make commitment decisions and distribute funds to State hospitals and community programs on a fee-for-service basis. Many political compromises were required to pass this decentralizing legislation in Ohio. One such compromise has the State retaining financial responsibility only for those State hospital patients committed through criminal processes. The resulting structure of financing and decisionmaking may encourage some local officials to use criminal commitment procedures to manage nuisance offenders. 1 table, 5 figures, and 5 references