By Forum Staff
The City Council on Monday released a new report that evaluates the recently released data on Mayor Eric Adams’ involuntary removal/transport policy for people in mental health crisis, raising questions about its effectiveness and inconsistencies with its stated goals.
The report indicates that the administration’s self-reported data “is incomplete, shows involuntary removals are far more likely to originate from private homes rather than public spaces, and disproportionally subjects Black New Yorkers to the practice.”
Adams has centered this involuntary removal policy in his strategy to address the City’s mental health challenges, especially in public places, but the data fails to show effectiveness in connecting people to care and contradicts the administration’s desired outcome of moving people experiencing mental health crisis in public to treatment. The Council’s report highlights that Adams’ excessive focus on this approach undermines the City’s attentive support of other mental health programs with evidence of improving outcomes. The City’s underinvestment in these programs that maintain practical waitlists, along with the involuntary removal policy, are expected to be the subject of the Council’s Monday, March 24, Preliminary Budget Hearing by the Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction.
Key report takeaways include:
- Many New Yorkers subjected to involuntarily removal/transport do not receive inpatient treatment or remain disconnected from long-term care.
- Involuntary transports were more than five times as likely to originate in a private residence than a public place, contradicting the Mayor’s rhetoric that the policy is aimed at helping those struggling with mental illness in public spaces and on public transportation.
- The racial disparities of the policy are stark – Black New Yorkers make up 23 percent of the city’s overall population but 54 percent of involuntary transports.
- There is important data missing on the locations and hospital admissions related to the practice.
Despite the mayoral administration’s reliance on involuntary removals and transports, as it pursues expanded authority for the use of involuntary commitments, there remains a lack of clear data about the practice’s effectiveness as a solution to improve mental health outcomes. The increasing focus on these policies of imposed action has overshadowed mental health solutions with significant evidence of being effective yet lacking in sufficient resources to serve New Yorkers in need of short and long-term mental health treatment.
These include programs like:
- Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT): Proven models that provide sustained care for individuals with serious mental illness, but currently have waitlists that are leaving New Yorkers in need without care.
- Continuum of Care: It is critical that effective transitional support programs exist to help people maintain stability as their conditions improve. Step-down programs from IMT/ACT can help people keep people housed, on medication and out of hospitals, while freeing up spots for IMT/ACT to reduce their waitlists.
- Community-Based Care Models: Through legislation, the Council expanded access to crisis respite centers and clubhouses, but the mayoral administration undermined several existing clubhouses with its new contracts. Several of those clubhouses that New Yorkers relied upon were saved by the Council committing its discretionary funding towards their preservation for the current fiscal year. Yet, they will require continued funding, and the mayoral administration should provide funds in the forthcoming budget that maintains their ability to help New Yorkers.
“The administration has continuously relied on involuntary removals as a catch-all solution without providing funding for the necessary treatment measures for people in need of long-term services,” said Councilwoman Linda Lee, chairwoman of the Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction.
