New York City Mayor Eric Adams is getting heat for genuine problem-solving, while others know that it is worthy of praise. A desire to solve a public mental health problem is respectable and ultimately requires an extensive effort.
People experiencing Homeless are significantly more likely to have a mental illness than their non-homeless counterparts. Crimes committed by those that are homeless in NYC have spiked in addition to violent crime itself. Homeless people are often present on the transportation system, more often the subways than other parts of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Having visited during Thanksgiving break, 2022’s crime in the system has paved the way for conductors to always announce whether there is a police officer on board, in the station the train arrives at, or whether a station has a transit bureau, should anyone require assistance. This mandated set of announcements is something I have never heard before in my two decades of using one of the world’s largest subway systems, and remains very telling.
Further in regards to the MTA, it’s also good to know that there is a further crackdown on fare evasion which has been proven to work. It establishes that a human presence can solve problems and now the NYPD and FDNY are further directed to commit certain people they witness experience mental health problems to facilities. However, this goes beyond NYC itself.
New York state law from 2021 allows first responders to determine whether someone they are dealing with needs to be sent to facilities and if necessary, it can be involuntarily for that person of interest. Mathematically, the greatest value of such a law will come from the most populous areas of the state, and thus more so NYC.
The recent New York Times headline bluntly states that “NYC Will Hospitalize Mentally Ill People Involuntarily” already giving away what it might think. Unsurprisingly, a follow-up article was titled “How Cities Around the US and Abroad Approach Homelessness,” because ultimately everyone has a problem with everything.
NYC is the perfect place to determine how useful this state law can actually be and Adams reinforced the idea this week as he believed that first responders were not entirely sure about the scope of the law. With the additional clarity, there should be even less hesitation to enforce the law, much to the benefit of all the other people that can be negatively affected by as little as one person.
Adams believes that mental illness is a key reason for the crime increase during the pandemic years, and it makes sense. In a decade where everyone seems to believe they suddenly have a mental health problem, it’s more than essential to find some resolution to the most severe cases, especially as people with severe ones being a public threat can also induce mental health issues on others.