By: Hellen Zaboulani

A year ago, New York City Mayor Eric Adams had unveiled his plan to address serious mental illness.  As reported by Crain’s NY, the strategies outlined had included police involvement and involuntary hospitalization, which had initially been slammed by advocacy groups. Experts are now saying that not a lot of progress can be seen in NYC’s mental health issues. “Everyone in New York City has a particular need for something: shelter, food, medical services and the like,” said Beth Haroules, the director of disability justice litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “And I think rather than the city being as creative as it can be [in] leveraging the resources that are here, they’re just walking away from everything.”

Kimberly Blair, director of public policy and advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City faults the city for lack of communication and data sharing between organizations. “The public needs data. We need transparency as a community-based organization. How are we expected to partner with city agencies if we don’t know the data or the trends? We don’t know how to provide that follow-up care,” Blair said.

NYC is still inundated by random acts of violence by mentally unstable persons.  In October, a 30-year-old woman was left in critical condition after being pushed into a train by an offender who police described as, “known to us in the subway system.”  NYPD data shows that the number of incidents where individuals are pushed into the subway tracks has declined slightly over recent years. In 2022, there were 29 incidents reported, compared to 30 in 2021. So far this year, 15 individuals have been pushed, as of Oct. 15 2023, which is seven less than the same time frame in 2022.

As per Crain’s, Adams’ plan hoped to tackle untreated individuals with mental illness who have resisted voluntary assistance but who pose a danger to themselves and others.  The plan of action included additional training for police officers, a hotline staffed by Health + Hospitals clinicians to guide police officers, and emergency medical responders who would involuntary transport those in need to hospitals.  This part of the November directive was highly controversial, with advocates claiming that forcing people into treatment infringes on their autonomy. Some mental illness-focused groups even argued that involuntary hospitalization violated New Yorkers’ rights.  As of now, experts say they have not seen a significant uptick in involuntary hospitalizations.  Politico reported in May that H+H had only about 38 involuntary commitments by then.

The city has responded to say that the mental health problem can’t be resolved overnight, and that sparse data makes it hard to tell if the plan is succeeding.  Brian Stettin, the senior advisor on severe mental illness for the Adams administration, also added that he doesn’t expect the directive to involuntarily hospitalize people to cause a major shift in the number of people being hospitalized.  He said that those types of “removals” are relatively rare.  “It’s not going to happen overnight,” Stettin added, regarding progress. “We’re trying to reverse decades of systemic neglect”.

It is also notable to mention the city’s budget woes, resulting from the migrant crisis.  In September, Mayor Adams had requested all NYC agencies to cut costs by 5%, to help offset the financial burden of sheltering the flood of roughly 110,000 migrants who have entered the city.