NYC can force 'severely' mentally ill people to be hospitalized, Adams says

Calling the need to treat those with mental illness "an urgent and complex challenge," New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday issued a directive reminding police officers, clinicians and others that they have the legal authority to compel people to be hospitalized under certain circumstances.

The mayor also announced an 11-point mental health agenda for the upcoming legislative session in Albany that's aimed, he said, at getting those who need treatment off the street and into care — and filling what the mayor's office called "gaps" in New York State's Mental Hygiene Law.

"People with severe and untreated mental illness live out in the open, on our streets, in our subways, in danger and in need," Adams said during a news conference at City Hall.

The directive cites the city's Mental Hygiene Law's authorization of police officers, physicians and others to compel a psychological evaluation for people who are assessed to be mentally ill and to pose a potential danger to themselves and/or others.

The policy director for the nonprofit Coalition of the Homeless criticized Adams' plan in a statement, saying the city should instead focus on expanding access to mental health and voluntary outpatient psychiatric care. The Coalition urged the city to focus on using vacant hotel rooms for unsheltered people and to do more to make supportive housing available.

Of the 93,925 adults eligible in December 2021 to receive enhanced mental health services in New York City under the State’s Medicaid managed care program, just 2,179 people received the care in the year prior, said Jacquelyn Simone, the Coalition's policy director, in the statement provided by an outside PR agency.

"Mayor Adams continues to get it wrong when it comes to his reliance on ineffective surveillance, policing, and involuntary transport and treatment of people with mental illness. Homeless people are more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators, but Mayor Adams has continually scapegoated homeless people and others with mental illness as violent," Stone said in the statement. " … Mayor Adams needs to focus on repairing our broken mental health system and prioritize bringing access to quality voluntary care and affordable, permanent housing with support services to New Yorkers who need it the most.”

The mayor's agenda for the next Albany session, which begins in January, includes:

• A mandate that a range of factors be considered by hospital clinicians when determining whether an involuntary admission is needed.
• A requirement for all psychiatric patients to be screened before being discharged from the hospital, in order to make a determination about whether "assisted outpatient treatment is needed."
• Requiring better collaboration with community providers.
• Widening the range of mental health professionals who can evaluate a person and potentially remove them for treatment.

The mayor's plan also calls for enhanced training for outreach workers in order to emphasize so-called "basic needs" interventions — training that includes strategies designed to be used before removals.

With John Asbury

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”