Hochul‘s Course Correction on Mental Health: A Necessary Step for New York
New York, NY – Governor Kathy Hochul is to be commended for a pivotal shift in New York’s approach to mental healthcare: a move towards increasing capacity in state psychiatric hospitals. This decision marks a welcome acknowledgement of a decades-long policy failure and a crucial step towards addressing the visible and growing mental health crisis on New York’s streets, subways, and within its jail system.
For seventy years, New York has pursued a path of deinstitutionalization, prioritizing community-based treatment, supportive housing, and specialized homeless shelters. While well-intentioned, the results speak for themselves. Despite decades of investment, these approaches have demonstrably failed to adequately serve the state’s most vulnerable population.
A recent report from the Manhattan Institute underscores the devastating consequences of this policy. The closure of large psychiatric hospitals beginning in the 1950s and 60s didn’t eliminate the need for care; it simply shifted the burden. This “transinstitutionalization” saw individuals with serious mental illness funneled into other institutions – primarily prisons and jails – or left to navigate life on the streets, in parks, and within the public transit system.
The initial closures were spurred by legitimate concerns regarding overcrowding and substandard conditions within older institutions. However, dismantling the hospital system without a viable, fully-funded choice proved disastrous. Local communities were left ill-equipped to handle the complex needs of the severely mentally ill, often resorting to costly and ineffective interventions like incarceration.
Governor Hochul’s decision to add hundreds of hospital beds is a positive, albeit belated, response.However, New York still lags considerably behind where it needs to be. Inpatient capacity remains lower than it was in 2014, when former Governor Andrew Cuomo initiated a period of bed reductions.
While supportive housing plays a role in providing stability,it is not a substitute for comprehensive psychiatric care.Inpatient treatment offers the intensive support necessary for individuals experiencing acute mental health episodes. The current situation is tragically clear: without access to real treatment,the state’s jails are effectively functioning as de facto mental health facilities.
Alarmingly, approximately 20% of Rikers Island detainees suffer from serious mental illness. Many are incarcerated for offenses stemming directly from their untreated conditions, and upon release, frequently enough cycle back into the system, continuing a pattern of victimization and public safety concerns.
