Governor Hochul’s Shift on Mental Health Treatment in New York
Governor Kathy Hochul deserves credit for reassessing New York’s long-standing approach to mental health. Recently, she made a notable addition by reopening a state mental hospital.
It’s refreshing to see this acknowledgment of reality.
After nearly 70 years, the effectiveness of community-based treatment, supportive housing, and mental health shelters has been clearly demonstrated.
Yet, the reality is stark: streets, subways, and jails are filled with individuals suffering from severe mental illnesses who genuinely need proper care.
A recent report from the Manhattan Institute revealed that large mental hospitals were closed during the 1950s and 1960s, leading to a gradual reduction in hospital beds in the subsequent decades. As a result, many individuals struggling with mental health find themselves in facilities like prisons or even homeless shelters.
The decision to close mental hospitals was influenced by troubling reports of overcrowding and poor treatment, but in doing so, the burden was shifted to communities, requiring them to manage care for these individuals, often resorting to incarceration.
Hochul’s recent initiatives aim to reverse some of this trend, with hundreds of additional hospital beds being added. However, New York’s current capacity is still less than what it was when former Governor Andrew Cuomo began reducing hospital beds in 2014.
While mental health advocates push for supportive housing as a solution to lead individuals toward stability, this approach doesn’t effectively address their underlying conditions.
Years of experience suggest that city and state prisons have inadvertently become default mental health facilities, but without proper treatment, this is far from a solution.
Currently, around 20% of detainees at Rikers Island are severely mentally ill. Many face serious charges, yet the treatment they receive while incarcerated is inadequate, often leading to further issues upon their release.
Involving hospitalized care for those in need is a compassionate response to the ongoing mental health crisis.
Hochul’s efforts to shift the course of deinstitutionalization mark a hopeful development for New York. It’s a step in the right direction that we can all appreciate.
