Eric Adams’ Plan to Hospitalize the Homeless

Investing in cost-effective solutions

Instead, Mayor Adams should look to examples for addressing homelessness that center on people, focus on connecting short-term interventions to long-term housing solutions, and promote pathways to economic mobility. Cities like Denver,3 Boston,4 and Dallas,5 amongst several others,6 have all been successful in reducing unsheltered homelessness by using a public health approach that brings together coordinated outreach providers, health systems, and housing partners to respond to increases in unsheltered homelessness and support those with severe mental illness.

3) See Breaking the Homelessness-Jail Cycle with Housing First: Results from the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/breaking-homelessness-jailcycle-housing-first-results-denver-supportive-housing-social-impactbond-initiative

4) See What Other Cities Can Learn from Boston’s Public Health Approach to Homelessness. https://www.usich.gov/news/what-other-citiescan-learn-from-bostons-public-health-approach-to-homelessness/

5) See Ending Homelessness for People Living in Encampments: Lessons from Dallas, TX. https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Encampments-Case-Study-Dallas.pdf

6) See Case Studies: Ending Homelessness for People Living in Encampments. https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/case-studies-endinghomelessness-for-people-living-in-encampments

Mayor Adams is proposing. Other leaders proposing intervention to address those who are homeless due to untreated psychosis, such as Governor Gavin Newsom in California, have also faced stiff opposition from civil rights groups. True leadership, however, requires the strength to decide what is needed and walk bravely in that direction.

If New York City invests in training and hospital beds and care coordination (which does indeed seem to be happening) some extremely vulnerable people’s lives will be saved. If it bows, however, to the critics who have proposed nothing other than more of what is not working now, those lives will be lost.

While the mayor’s mental health plan includes positive community mental health investments, it makes no investment in housing. The mayor’s plan acknowledges that safe, stable, and affordable housing is a critical part of supporting individuals with severe mental illness,7 but it stops short of providing funding for more affordable housing. The city is on track to develop 15,000 new affordable housing units with wraparound services, with 7,000 units produced to date. The mayor included this goal set by the de Blasio administration as part of transitional housing, reducing red tape to get into housing, and better integrating existing services for those experiencing severe mental illness who are already housed. These actions are a good step. But based on the mayor’s numbers, even when the development of the 15,000 units is complete, there will still be 32,000 individuals simultaneously experiencing homelessness and a mental health crisis.

Mayor Adams must invest in better solutions that provide pathways to safe, stable, and affordable housing with services. Otherwise, taxpayers will still be on the hook for $483 million annually with no end in sight. RF

Deborah DeSantis is President and CEO of the Corporation for Supportive Housing.

7) Care, Community, Action: A Mental Health Plan for New York City. Pg. 33

While the enormity of the job of addressing our broken mental health system can sometimes seem overwhelming, we must never lose sight of the fact that effective treatment does exist; recovery is possible; and we owe our loved ones and fellow humans the chance to achieve it. Every single individual suffering on our streets, trapped by psychosis, is deserving of that chance. RF

Lisa Dailey

Executive Director of Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Virginia, a national nonprofit dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness.