The New York City Council is giving Mayor Eric Adams new deadlines for opening community-based mental health services that have been slow to materialize.
On Thursday, the Council passed a package of mental health legislation that includes a measure directing city agencies to create at least four new crisis respite centers across the five boroughs, two of which would have to be ready to open their doors within two years. The bundle of bills also included a requirement for a map of the city’s mental health services and a requirement for first responders to report on how frequently they take people to the hospital against their will.
Crisis respite centers offer short-term stays in small residences, where people in the midst of a mental health crisis can talk through their issues with others who understand what they’re going through and get connected to needed services. Such home-like centers were first piloted in New York City a decade ago and have been shown to help reduce the need for costly hospital care.
Yet, only four crisis respite centers are currently operating in partnership with the city, and the nonprofits running them say they have limited capacity.
“What we are seeing every day is people cycling in and out of the emergency room, in and out of emergency psychiatric care,” Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents parts of Manhattan and is a member of the Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities and Addiction, told Gothamist ahead of Thursday’s vote. “The city has not moved nearly fast enough on setting up these respite centers.”
The Council also passed a bill that would give the city government until the end of 2025 to open at least five more clubhouses where people with serious mental illnesses can go to socialize and gain skills and job opportunities. A 2016 analysis found members of Fountain House, the Manhattan center that created this now-international model back in the 1940s, spend less on emergency medical costs.
The mayor and Health…
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