Mayor says NYC will treat mentally ill, even if they refuse

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s mayor on Tuesday said he was directing police and city medics to be more aggressive about getting severely mentally ill people off the streets and subways and into treatment, even if it means involuntarily hospitalizing some people who refuse care.

“These New Yorkers and hundreds of others like them are in urgent need of treatment, yet often refuse it when offered,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference, noting the pervasive problem of mental illness has long been out in the open.

“No more walking by or looking away,” the mayor said, calling it “a moral obligation to act.”

The mayor’s directive marks the latest attempt to ease a crisis decades in the making. It would give outreach workers, city hospitals and first responders, including police, the discretion to involuntarily hospitalize anyone they deem a danger to themselves or unable to care for themselves.

-snip-

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
28 minutes ago


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-new-york-city-mental-government-and-politics-21d32260d21bee4ac87a81a55234ba11

[beaglelover]

1. Good! Wish Los Angeles would do the same thing!

[choie]

2. Good? Do you know how many people

are going to be killed or wounded by police if this is actually implemented??

[beaglelover]

3. No, how many?

[brooklynite]

8. "Killed or wounded"?

As many as were killed or wounded when the police broke up homeless encampments? ie. none?

[eissa]

29. Not just LA, all of CA

I just said the same thing in a similar post in GD. Unfortunately, homeless enablers will oppose this, because heaven forbid we try something other than coddling people who refuse assistance.

[beaglelover]

31. I agree with you 100%.

[progree]

4. For mental health treatment to be effective, the person has got to want to change

otherwise they just go through the motions and play along. And there is a big shortage of mental health care professionals at all levels, and psychiatric hospital beds, so this will just take resources away from helping those who want to be helped, who, generally speaking, are woefully underserved. But it looks like he's taking charge and doing something about the problem, so the optics are admittedly great.

[Chakaconcarne]

5. 80%+ of our psych patients upon admission don't want tx

and most of these patients will discharge in stable condition. whether they remain stable depends on the community mental health treatment/support available to them and their ability to pay for meds. . If that's not in place the plan will fail...but it absolutely can be done but it's extremely expensive. Their care needs to be fully funded.

[Happy Hoosier]

18. Quite often, metal health patients need help to embrace treatment.

A symptom of mental health problems is often denial and paranoia. Some patients need some measure of treatment to be able to make an informed decision about treatment.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. For mental health treatment to be effective, it has to actually help. Pretending people "don't want

to change" is breathtakingly ignorant.

[progree]

23. Sorry, but I've encountered it myself in my many years in support groups of various kinds

including Emotions Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous and Addiction Busters and about everything else in the Twin Cities. We would plot to get around the system when we were forced into treatment. And some that would insist they were fine and it's normal to feel suicidally depressed given their life circumstances. I've seen and heard it all.

[zanana1]

25. So you've known a lot of schizophrenics?

Some of them realize that they're ill, some of them don't. It's not that they don't want to change.

[progree]

28. Some do, some don't. Some do but aren't able to do the hard work and apply the huge amount

of self-discipline required over the long term. And with the lack of mental health support services, which is even more lacking in the last few years, it is even harder.

Most who I'm familar with are major depression, bipolar, and chemically dependent.

I think people who think they can scoop up people off the street involuntarily and putting them in treatment for 30 days or whatever and expect the majority to eventually get reasonably well are naive. We wouldn't have the homeless problems we have if it were that easy. Its not.

[zanana1]

24. Agreed.

[Red Mountain]

6. Didn't Reagan dump these people on the street?

My recollection.

[ripcord]

9. Shouldn't we have done somethig before now to fix that?

[Mz Pip]

11. Reagan was several administrations ago

Decades have passed and we’ve had both Democratic and Republican administrations, yet here we are.

[ShazzieB]

17. My recollection concurs with yours. 😾

[TomSlick]

7. I am skeptical.

I am skeptical about the ability to force mental health care unless the person is a danger to them self or others.

[Major Nikon]

10. As long as they get Trump at the airport

[Hekate]

12. About time, too. This is a social experiment that has run its course

[Roy Rolling]

13. Should they detain TFG?

A rookie cop on the street gets to make the decision a patient needs urgent confinement? I’m all-in for getting patients into professional treatment, so maybe some training or special staff is needed to focus on such a mandate.

But if the mayor just detains crazy, why doesn’t TFG fit the definition of “mentally ill”—an ambiguous term at best.

Force him into treatment, medication, and a healthy lifestyle and see if he’s cured.

[twodogsbarking]

14. We could continue to do what we do or bring in experts.

I wish this had been done for my brother.

[milestogo]

15. There was a homeless, mentally ill man in my neighborhood

who was walking into homes that left their doors unlocked. He was cold and hungry. But imagine how terrifying it is to find a stranger in your home!

He was arrested and taken off the street. A short time later he was doing the same thing. I think he should be institutionalized for his safety and everyone else's.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

21. Gosh sounds like he actually needs housing and support, not incarceration.

[milestogo]

22. He got neither.

There is housing for homeless men, but some homeless people do not want to stay in a shelter. Its part of the mental illness.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

27. Shelters are often more dangerous than the streets.

[The Jungle 1]

16. The question is money

Will money be added to the mental health system. If you just dump more sick people into the system it will fail.
The numbers are large and the money will have to come from the City, State and Federal government. Management of the money will be important.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

19. This is a horrifying, violent policy that is yet another way to give cops money and power, and will

hurt and kill a lot of people.

[zanana1]

26. Yup.

[markpkessinger]

32. +1

Amen!

[dembotoz]

30. if you put a shoe in a pressure cooker long enough eventually it will break down

do not underestimate the stress that supposedly mentally ill folks are under.

I took in an acquaintance who was facing homelessness. It was me or hopefully a shelter.
She was fraying around the edges. My task was to eliminate some of the stress she was under by providing a roof so that she could sort things out and ....i was going to say recover but that is not the right word.

Yes we must take care of those who have lost it, but we also must also strive to provide an off ramp to those who are sinking.

she is doing better

[markpkessinger]

33. This is not a solution . . .

. . . First of all, it doubles down on the long-standing problem of putting police in the position of making mental health determinations they are unqualified to make. And don't even get me started on the civil liberties issues!

[elocs]

34. Homelessness is a problem in my western WI city of 50,000 where our mayor has invited them to live

without a clue as to where they would go in our cold winter. Last winter they housed them at a large local motel without a clue as to what they would do the next winter and now it's next winter already. It was so easy when we were getting all hundreds of thousands of dollars from the feds. I don't believe in criminalizing homelessness but I have no problem in criminalizing homeless criminals, people who use their homeless condition as a cover for their criminal activity.

The morning of the midterm election I was second in line at my polling place. I got to talking with the guy in front of me as we were waiting for the polls to open about our homeless problem where they had camped all summer outside of the polling place because it was a community center located next to a city beach that had running showers as well as electric outlets outside. We found ourselves in agreement about the problem and he told me he owned a hair salon where they were trying to help a homeless mother and her children. After we voted he told me his name, asked for mine and my phone number. His name was familiar to me but I couldn't quite place it so I googled it when I got home.
It turns out he is the chairman of the local Republican Party.
When you have 2 people from opposite sides of the political spectrum agree on an issue, that's meaningful. I think our mayor is going to be in for a rude awakening when he runs for reelection because, frankly, the people here have had enough.