June 19, 2023 (By Matthew Canuteson, Diversity and Inclusion Officer)
Today we celebrate Juneteenth, commemorating the emancipation of the last enslaved Black Americans in 1865. Juneteenth is a time to honor the struggle for Black civil rights and the critical work being done by New Yorkers to eliminate racism and discrimination. In that light – we would like to share this fantastic video created by our Agency partners at the New York State Division of Human Rights.
This Juneteenth, let us also reflect on the important and necessary work underway in our organizations to eliminate inequities that result in disparities in access, quality and outcomes in our communities.
At the Office of Mental Health, this has included the Agency’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion has hosting ‘Race Dialogues’ across our facilities. These create an opportunity to have difficult but necessary conversations around the importance of recognizing biases, celebrating diversity, and working to be a more inclusive environment for all individuals. Additionally, this work has included an Agency-wide Structural Racism Self-Assessment to identify areas where policies and practices unintentionally result in inequities, so corrective actions can be implemented. This work has also included strongly including equity components in funding and regulatory mechanisms, increased collection and use of disparities data, and the creation of diversity pipeline programs to increase levels of diversity in New York’s community mental health system.
While we celebrate strides and accomplishments, the work is far from done. We are committed to holding ourselves accountable for making change and promoting equity and inclusivity at all levels. As we celebrate Juneteenth this year, please join us with continued vigilance and attention towards promoting a more inclusive and equitable mental health system place for all.
Matthew Canuteson Pronouns: He, Him, His Diversity and Inclusion Officer Office of Diversity and Inclusion New York State Office of Mental Health 44 Holland Ave 2nd Floor Albany, NY 12229 518-473-4548 matthew.canuteson@omh.ny.gov www.omh.ny.gov
While Pride Month is a month of celebration, it remains essential to recognize the impact high levels of discrimination, hate and stigma have on LGBTQIA+ communities. Specifically, we would like to highlight health consequences – noting they are compounded for especially vulnerable populations, such as people of color, youth, adolescents, and transgender/non-binary individuals.
Because of this, the Office of Mental Health is consistently implementing program and policy advances to address these additional challenges. These include funding training initiatives to ensure the provision of gender-affirming care in the community mental health system, the provision of specific and targeted funding to concretely address the unique mental health needs of these populations, and the provision of educational materials specific to LGBTQIA+ communities (below).
Language Matters: Gender Learn about some of the gender-affirming terms to use and which terms to avoid.
This work also includes funding the expansion of the amazing Trans 101: Creating a Safe and Affirming Environment for Transgender Consumers training, presented by the Rainbow Heights Club. The training, focused on how to affirm, support and work with mental health consumers who identify as transgender or gender nonconforming, reached over 3,000 NYS mental health providers last year.
Lastly, the Agency continues to advance efforts to adequately collect both quantitative and qualitative data on access, quality and treatment outcomes for LGBTQIA+ communities – to acknowledge, quantify and inform program and policy changes to improve overall service accessibility and quality.
This Pride Month, may you all join OMH in promoting equity for all!
Matthew Canuteson Pronouns: He, Him, His Diversity and Inclusion Officer Office of Diversity and Inclusion New York State Office of Mental Health 44 Holland Ave 2nd Floor Albany, NY 12229 518-473-4548 matthew.canuteson@omh.ny.gov www.omh.ny.gov
NYAPRS Statement
NYAPRS Note: The NYAPRS Cultural Competence Committee released the following statement in recognition and celebration of Pride Month. We are committed to fighting for the rights for all people in recovery, including those of us with diverse sexual and gender identities. Read the statement below.
June 1, 2023 by Howard Diamond (this is the 9th part in a multiple part series)
When Is Progress Is Not Fast Enough
A few weeks later, towards the end of July, it was the third consecutive 90 degree day in Lake Town and the natives were restless. This is especially true for Ruth. Little by little, she has been taking off her heavy pain and other medications, but the effects of the bullet pieces are apparent. Although this incident was about three weeks prior, on occasion she has problems putting thoughts together, but she is trying very hard to improve.
Good news was that Ruth is presently able to walk with only a small limp and most days without a cane with four prongs to get around. During the last few nights, she has become exceedingly fidgety and at times, she starts to mumble, but they are not words, just sounds. She continued seeing her therapist, Jane, weekly which still helps her. Bad news, Ruth began getting lots of prank phone calls while the mysteryman repeated obsessively over and over again, “BEWARE THE STREETS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ONCE MORE! REMEMBER, I STILL KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. BEWARE THE STREETS”.
Watch the Moving Celia Brown Unsung Champions of Advocacy Ceremony Here!
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May 26, 2023 (By Harvey Rosenthal, CEO of NYAPRS)
The NYAPRS Cultural Competence Committee is very pleased to share the program and recorded version of this past Wednesday’s first annual Celia Brown Unsung Champions of Advocacy Event. In the words of the committee, “Awards were given to recognize individuals who serve our community with dedication and commitment, but whose work has gone unrecognized or unknown to the wider public. They have made an important difference and we wish to let them know. Let’s say their names and celebrate their contributions!”
Please see the attached program identifying this year’s Unsung Champions and watch the program at https://youtu.be/I1Z-etTf0Pk to experience this very moving and uplifting ceremony!
Great thanks are due to Committee co-chairs Marguerite Gayle and Jeff McQueen and Committee members Theresa Hall, Laverne Miller, Digna Quinones, Dr. Deborah Wilcox, Joessie Otter and Magaly Polo for their inspiring contributions towards making this such a very heartfelt and inspiring event!
Criminal Justice Reform Is Essential to Improve Mental Health Outcomes!
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NYAPRS Note: The number of people with mental health challenges in jails and prisons is staggering. A 2017 Bureau of Justice Statistics report stated 44% of people in jails and 37% of those in prisons had a known history of serious mental health challenges. Meanwhile, the prevalence of mental health challenges in the general US population is close to 20Re%. The combination of inadequate mental health services, awful environmental conditions, and violence in jails leads to high suicide rates for those behind bars as well as unaddressed trauma and increased challenges amongst those who leave jails. We need to stop criminalizing mental health and reduce the number of people with mental health challenges in jails and make necessary changes to our system, including:
Investing in diversion efforts, such as Daniel’s Lawprevent more people from entering the criminal justice system to begin with,
Offering alternatives to jails when individuals have already entered the system. The Treatment Not Jail legislation does exactly this.
Improving services within jails and transitional services for those reentering their communities. New York must fully implement the HALT law that bans solitary confinement for people with mental health challenges in jails and prisons and the alternative use of Residential Rehabilitation Units, as well as secure federal authorization to restore Medicaid benefits 30 days before jail and prison discharge.
Ending continued punishment for those with past criminal convictions by barring them from competitive employment and affordable housing. When people cannot access legal employment, they are more likely to commit crimes, creating a cycle of imprisonment and poverty. The Clean Slate Act will allows thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals to access work and stop the cycle of recidivism.
NYAPRS will continue to advocate for necessary criminal justice and mental health system reforms to improve the lives of those with mental health challenges. We are actively pushing for the passage of Clean Slate. You can support the legislation by sending an email or tweet to your legislators asking them to pass the bill using this link. See below for an account of the way time in jail affects people with mental health challenges.
Two Decades of Prison Did Not Prepare Me for the Horrors of County Jail
By Christopher Blackwell | New York Times | May 16, 2023
When I was 22 years old, I committed robbery and murder. I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 years, of which I have so far served two decades.
During that time, I’ve experienced the squalor and dangerous conditions of various state prisons. I’ve lived in a crumbling penitentiary built in the 1800s. I’ve been put in isolation for weeks on endbecause of Covid exposure and infection. Still, I was not prepared for what I found when I was transferred to a county jail for two weeks last December.
Along with people serving short sentences for relatively minor offenses, jails house people who are awaiting trial and either didn’t get bail or simply couldn’t pay it — people, that is, who have not been convicted of any crime.
Despite that fact, conditions in these facilities are often worse, and sometimes much worse, than those in the prisons where people who are convicted of the worst crimes are confined. Jails throw people together in overcrowded units that may be controlled by the most violent people in the room. Like prisons, jails house a disproportionate number of people experiencing addiction or chronic health conditions but jails lack the resources to treat them and adequate staffing overall. Udi Ofer, a professor at Princeton University who focuses on policing and criminal justice reform, told me that jails “regularly rely on even harsher conditions of confinement” than prisons do.
As a prison writer, journalist and criminal justice activist, I try to communicate to anyone who will listen that the vast majority of incarcerated people will eventually return to their communities. The trauma they suffer on the inside comes with them. Just as a very short time in solitary confinement can cause lasting harm, weeks or months in county jail can have a huge negative impact on people’s lives, even after they are released. What happens in jails doesn’t stay in jails.
Ethan Frenchman, a lawyer in Washington who advocates on behalf of people with disabilities in jails, told me that while the nation’s roughly 1,500 state prisons are operated or overseen by 50 states, the 3,000 or so jails “are operated by who knows how many hundreds or thousands of different jurisdictions,” making it extremely hard to get reliable information about what goes on there, or to enforce any kind of accountability.
One data point is unmistakable: suicide rates. Suicides are the leading cause of death in jails, where they occur at a much higher rate than in prisons. Big city jails, like the complex on Rikers Island, are infamous for violence, neglect and overcrowding, but they are not outliers. In fact, research by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that suicide rates in the nation’s smallest jails were more than six times as high as those in the largest.
During my recent trip to Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Wash., where I was sent to await a resentencing hearing that was ultimately delayed, I shared a cell with William Starkovich, a 35-year-old who had never been incarcerated before. He is awaiting trial in Pierce County Jail after an altercation with his siblings over rent money ended in two charges of assault in the first degree.
Mr. Starkovich, who gave me permission to tell his story, has received diagnoses of A.D.H.D., manic depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorder.Since his mental illness can affect his ability to maintain his physical hygiene, he is often a target of ridicule and aggression from other prisoners. He has been assaulted by other prisoners and guards alike. Mr. Starkovich told me that guards insisted on transferring him into an open dorm living unit where he didn’t feel safe. When he would not step into the unit, a “code blue” was called, meaning that a prisoner was defying an order. He was wrestled to the ground, tased and handcuffed.
Reports from jails across the country, from Rikers in New York to Santa Clara County’s Main Jail complex, in San Jose, Calif., have shown that mentally ill people are frequently mistreated. Families have filed lawsuits alleging that corrections officers have severely beaten mentally ill people, or let them starve or freeze to death. A 2014 internal investigation at Rikers found that almost 80 percent of the more than 100 prisoners who sustained serious injuries during altercations with corrections officers in 11 months were mentally ill.
Conditions in county jails are bad not just for people suffering from mental illnesses. Prisoners there are often given so little food that they are hungry all the time and must buy more in the commissary. My meals in prison consist of larger portions and far more fruits and vegetables than my meals in jail. To my surprise, I even found myself missing the flavors and variety of prison food. A prisoner in Maine summed up a typical meal in a county jail well when he asked a reporter to “consider eating ground-up gym mat with a little bit of seasoning.” But jail commissaries are so expensive that many people who can’t afford bail also can’t afford anything sold in them. In jail, I saw people beat each other up over commissary food.
Twenty-four packets of Top Ramen noodles that cost $6 on Amazon and just under $8 in my Washington State prison cost $26.40 in the Pierce County Jail’s commissary while I was incarcerated there. A small bag of freeze-dried coffee that costs $3.34 in state prison costs almost $13 in the county jail.
Phone calls to our loved ones, which cost just over a dollar for 20 minutes at a Washington State prison, cost nearly $4 from the county jail. An investigation by the Prison Policy Initiative found that in 20 states, phone calls from jails were at least three times as expensive as calls from state prisons. The calls I made from state prison and the county jail are managed by the same company, Securus Technologies, and I see no legitimate reason they should be three times as expensive at one facility.
And not only the day-to-day living conditions are hard. In state and federal prisons across the country, people have access to positive programming to help them better themselves, educate themselves and take responsibility for the crimes they’ve committed. I’ve worked for years in prison to earn an associate degree from Seattle Central College, and I am five classes shy of a bachelor’s degree in English and sociology. I have also co-founded a nonprofit, received training in restorative justice practices and worked as a restorative justice facilitator.
None of that changes the fact that I took another person’s life. I will live with profound regret about that for the rest of mine. However, one day I will return home. Thanks to the positive programs I have been able to participate in, the person who walks out of the prison gates will bear little resemblance to the person who entered them. Many people in prisons are trying to better themselves. For the most part, people in jail are just trying to survive.
We have to care about what’s happening in county jails if we are to make our communities safer. Eliminating cash bail, which puts people behind bars simply because they don’t have enough cash on hand, would drastically reduce the number of people in county jails. It would also make jails more humane environments for those who need to be detained for legitimate public safety concerns while they work their way through the court system. And research in states and cities across the country has found that eliminating or curtailing the use of cash bail does not have a negative effect on public safety.
Price restrictions that keep private companies from gouging prisoners and their loved ones could help those incarcerated in county jails get the food they need without resorting to violence. With positive changes, people confined in county jails could come out of their stays better equipped to thrive in their communities.
I may be in prison for decades to come, but Mr. Starkovich, like many men I met in county jail, could be released in the coming weeks. He will carry the memory of hunger, violence and fear with him.
Jamie Beth Cohen contributed reporting.
Christopher Blackwell (@chriswblackwell) is an incarcerated writer and a co-founder of the nonprofit Look 2 Justice. He is a contributing writer at Jewish Currents and a contributing editor at The Appeal.
NIH-Funded Study Highlights the Financial Toll of Health Disparities in the United States
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Ground-breaking study provides national and state-level estimates of the economic burden of health disparities by race and ethnicity and educational levels.
New research shows that the economic burden of health disparities in the United States remains unacceptably high. The study, funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), part of the National Institutes of Health, revealed that in 2018, racial and ethnic health disparities cost the U.S. economy $451 billion, a 41% increase from the previous estimate of $320 billion in 2014. The study also finds that the total burden of education-related health disparities for persons with less than a college degree in 2018 reached $978 billion, about two times greater than the annual growth rate of the U.S. economy in 2018.
The findings from this study by researchers from NIMHD; Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore; Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, Maryland; TALV Corp, Owings Mills, Maryland; and the National Urban League were published in JAMA.
This study is the first to estimate the total economic burden of health disparities for five racial and ethnic minority groups nationally and for all 50 states and the District of Columbia using a health equity approach. The health equity approach set aspirational health goals that all populations can strive for derived from the Healthy People 2030 goals. It establishes a single standard that can be applied to the nation and each state, and for all racial, ethnic, and education groups. It is also the first study to estimate the economic burden of health disparities by educational levels as a marker of socioeconomic status.
“The exorbitant cost of health disparities is diminishing U.S. economic potential. We have a clear call to action to address social and structural factors that negatively impact not only population health, but also economic growth,” said NIMHD Director Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D.
Economic Burden by Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups
National estimates
Most of the economic burden for racial and ethnic disparities was borne by Black/African American population (69%) due to the level of premature mortality.
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander ($23,225) and American Indian/Alaska Native ($12,351) populations had the highest economic burden per person.
Most of the economic burden was attributed to premature deaths for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NHPI) (90%), Black/African American (77%), and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) (74%) populations. For Asian (55%) and Hispanic/Latino (43%) populations, most of the burden was from excess medical care costs and lost labor market productivity, respectively.
State estimates
Five states with the highest burden of racial and ethnic health inequities were among the most populous and diverse states: Texas ($41 billion), California ($40 billion), Illinois ($29 billion), Florida ($27 billion), and Georgia ($21 billion).
Black/African American people had the highest economic burden of racial and ethnic health inequities in most states (33), followed by Hispanic/Latino (nine states), American Indian/Alaska Native (eight states), and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (one state) individuals.
The burden of racial and ethnic health disparities relative to each state’s GDP varied from 0.14% (Vermont) to 8.89% (Mississippi). Seventeen states had a burden higher than the annual growth rate of the U.S. economy in 2018.
Economic Burden by Educational Levels
National estimates
Per person, adults with a high school diploma had the highest burden ($9,982), followed closely by adults with less than a high school diploma ($9,467) and then adults with some college ($2,028).
Although most of the burden of education-related health inequities was borne by adults with a high school diploma/GED (61%), a disproportionate share was borne by adults with less than a high school diploma/GED—they were only 9% of the population but bore 26% of the burden.
Across all educational levels, most of the burden was attributable to premature deaths (66%), followed by lost labor market productivity (18%) and excess medical care costs (16%).
State estimates
Per person, the economic burden of health disparities varied substantially across states by educational levels. For adults with less than a high school diploma, the burden ranged from $3,152 (California) to $21,372 (Kentucky). For adults with a high school diploma, it ranged from $6,201 (West Virginia) to $25,555 (South Carolina), and for adults with some college, it ranged from $1,072 (Illinois) to $8,374 (South Carolina).
In 31 states, adults with less than a high school diploma/GED had the highest economic burden of education-related health inequities. In 20 states, the burden was greatest among adults with a high school diploma/GED. Adults with some college had the lowest burden of education-related health inequities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The burden of education-related health inequities relative to each state’s GDP varied from 1.90% (District of Columbia) to 18.29% (South Carolina). Forty-six states had a burden higher than the annual growth rate of the U.S. economy in 2018.
“The results of this study demonstrate that health inequity represents not just unfair and unequal health outcomes, but it also has a significant financial cost,” said lead author Thomas LaVeist, Ph.D., dean of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “While it surely will cost to address health inequities, there are also substantial costs associated with not addressing them. Health inequities is a social justice issue, but it is also an economic issue.”
Researchers collected and analyzed data from four databases to estimate the burden of racial and ethnic and education-related health inequities: 2016-2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, 2016-2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2016-2018 National Vital Statistics System, and 2018 American Community Survey. Specifically, estimates were produced using medical care costs, lost labor market productivity, and premature deaths for Asian, AI/AN, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and NHPI populations. Previous estimates did not include the AI/AN and NHPI populations as together they constitute about 2.5% of the U.S. population. Education-related inequities were estimated for adults without a four-year college degree, who were categorized into three education groups (adults with less than high school/GED, those with high school/GED, and those with some college).
While the economic burden of racial and ethnic and education-related health disparities is significant, the researchers noted that the burden could be reduced if investments are made to address structural contributors to known inequities, including racism and socioeconomic inequalities. They also recommended that federal and state health policymakers and offices of minority health could use these estimates to inform areas where policies and programs are most needed to address health inequities.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD): NIMHD leads scientific research to improve minority health and reduce health disparities by conducting and supporting research; planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating all minority health and health disparities research at NIH; promoting and supporting the training of a diverse research workforce; translating and disseminating research information; and fostering collaborations and partnerships. For more information about NIMHD, visit https://www.nimhd.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
References
LaVeist TA, Pérez-Stable EJ, Richard P, et al. The Economic Burden of Racial, Ethnic, and Educational Health Inequities in the US. JAMA. 2023. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2023.
Disability Community Expresses Outrage at the Murder of Jordan Neely
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May 11, byHarvey Rosenthal, Luke Sikinyi,Ruth Lowenkron, and the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (Reposted from NYAPRS ENews)
Calls on the City and the State to Appropriately ServeNew Yorkers Living with Mental Health Conditions
Jordan Neely’s heartbreaking, haunting, and cruel murder was a direct result of our City’s and our State’s systemic failures to provide a comprehensive continuum of services and support with appropriate follow up and accountability.
There is ample evidence that Mr. Neely had contact with a broad array of shelters, clinics, hospitals, street outreach teams, case management programs, and criminal justice and social service organizations. Our systems had more than a decade to meaningfully engage Mr. Neely and to provide him with sustained follow-up services and supports. Yet, at the time of his death, he had been identified by the City as one of the “top 50” homeless individuals most urgently in need of assistance and treatment.
We often speak of our goal to provide a “no wrong door” system of mental health access. Mr. Neely, in fact, entered our system through several doors, but we failed him each time. We are too quick to label people as “hard to serve” and “non-compliant,” rather than acknowledge our system’s inability to effectively engage and support people in profound need with appropriate, effective, and voluntary measures.
On Monday afternoon, Mr. Neely was riding the subway, complaining of hunger and thirst, saying that he was tired — that he didn’t care if he went to prison and that “it doesn’t even matter if I died.”
Mr. Neely’s desperate sense of despair may have been disturbing or even frightening to some, but it cannot be used to justify being choked to death on the floor of a City subway car. Tragically, he met all four of the qualifications to be routinely and unjustifiably considered to be dangerous: he was a Black, male, homeless individual living with major mental health challenges.
We have to answer the question posed on social media – does anyone think there is a Black man alive in this country who could walk up to a white person, in public, choke him to death in full view of other passengers and have it captured on video, and then just walk away after a brief chat with the police?
We must take action to respond to mental health crises with a public health rather than a criminalizing response that only drives people away and that fails to recognize that people with major mental health and trauma-related challenges are typically 11 timesmore likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of violence and no more likely to be violent than those who do not have such challenges.
This is also the time to assign accountability to City and State leaders whose policies promote a coercive approach that drives away people in need of what are currently vastly underfunded, overwhelmed and understaffed community services, and that turn the public against the disability community.
What we need is a system that succeeds in engaging people like Jordan Neely, that remains involved, and that identifies an agency to take the primary role in coordinating each individual’s services and resources to promote their safety and recovery. What we must not tolerate are policies such as those recently introduced by Mayor Eric Adams that promote detention by police of individuals who are merely perceived to have a mental health diagnosis, even when they do not present a danger to themselves or others.
We owe it to the memory of Jordan Neely to do all we possibly can to support people in similar circumstances, to show that it indeed matters if they live or die.
Advocates for Justice
Association for Community Living, Inc
Baltic Street AEH, Inc
Bronx Independent Living Services
Cardozo Bet Tzedek Legal Services
Coalition for Behavioral Health
CASES
Center for Disability Rights
Community Access
Daniels Law Coalition
504 Democratic Club
Families Together in New York State
Finger Lakes Independence Center
Fountain House
Hands Across Long Island
Harlem Independent Living Center
Independent Living, Inc
Mental Health Association of Nassau County
Mental Health Association of New York State
Mental Health Empowerment Project
Mobilization for Justice
New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
New York Association on Independent Living
New York City Justice Peer Initiative
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
New York State Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
Northern Regional Center for Independent Living
Police Reform Organizing Project
Queens Defenders
Regional Center for Independent Living
Resource Center for Accessible Living
Restoration Society, Inc
Seat At The Table Campaign
Southern Tier Independence Center
Staten Island Center for Independent Living
Supportive Housing Network of New York
Taconic Resources for Independence, Inc
Treatment Not Jail Coalition
Urban Justice Center Mental Health Project
VOCAL-NY
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NYAPRS Note: Jordan Neely’s tragic killing has sparked debate about how to best address the failings of our current mental health system. We are gathering more information every day that make clear how Mr. Neely was repeatedly failed by our current systems, services and public policies. While many individuals including NYC Mayor Adams are using Jordan’s cruel murder to call for increased use of forced treatment, doing so will only push people away from services, criminalize the struggles they are facing and create a sense of fear within the public.
New York needs an accountable system of care that fosters persistent but not coercive outreach, reliable, voluntary and trustworthy engagement, the identification of the agency best prepared to stay involved and coordinate individualized support, access to housing first programs that would have accepted not excluded unhoused individuals and the funding necessary to allow overwhelmed and understaffed agencies to answer the challenge.
Last week, NYAPRS and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) released a statement supported by over 40 disability rights and service organizations that you can find here. We are still accepting signatories and encourage organizations to sign on by emailing lukes@nyaprs.org with your organization’s name and representative.
You can use this link to share the statement on social media. Please also see below for recent coverage of the response to the murder of Jordan Neely.
‘It’s a Failure of the System’: Before Jordan Neely was Killed, He was Discarded
By Wilfred Chan | The Guardian | May 12, 2023
The young New Yorker, who lived with severe mental illness, was known to hospitals, police and social services. Why did the city fail him?
Ten years before he was killed on the New York subway, Jordan Neely had a stable routine.
Every morning, he would walk across the Washington Bridge connecting the Bronx to Upper Manhattan. In his red Michael Jackson jacket, he was easy to see coming. When he got to the corner store near 181st Street, he’d meet Jony Espinal, a local resident who befriended Neely after recognizing him from online videos.
“He’d hang out and do a little bit of pre-dancing, to get the money to go downtown,” Espinalrecalls. The two would then take the train together: Espinal to his job in lower Manhattan, and Neely to dance for subway passengers. “Everyone loved him,” Espinal says.
The young dancer would sometimes look “very downtrodden, very sweaty, and real dejected, like he’d had a rough night before”, Espinal says. But Neely “acted like everything was normal”. Espinal didn’t want to pry – Neely was “very shy” – so the two would chat about their shared love of video games and anime.
In reality, Neely was struggling to stay afloat. After his mother was murdered by his stepfather in 2007, when Neely was 14, he developed severe depression and PTSD, and also had autism and schizophrenia, according to relatives. He bounced between homes before ending up in the foster care system. In 2013, the year he started riding the train with Espinal, he also began crossing paths with police – telling them he was hearing voices.
Shortly afterwards, he became homeless, slipping into a cycle of mental health crises, arrests and hospitalization that would continue until his death.
Neely was killed on 1 May 2023, by a subway passenger, Daniel Penny, who put him in a chokehold. According to eyewitnesses, Neely had been yelling that he was hungry and thirsty, and that he didn’t care if he went to jail. Penny will be charged with second-degree manslaughter. Jordan Neely was 30 years old.
While the manner of Neely’s killing has sparked a national controversy, less attention has been paid to how Neely slipped through the cracks of New York City’s social safety net. Jordan was reportedly on the “top 50” list, a city roster of homeless people considered to be most urgently in need of help. In a city filled with social services, how could this happen? What were the institutions that were supposed to help him – and how did his journey through the safety net end on the floor of the F train?
Many questions about Neely’s life remain unanswered, and we may never know every detail. But people who know the social services Neely encountered say they’re familiar with stories like Neely’s, and the stacked odds he would have faced in trying to find care.
As a severely mentally ill person with an arrest record, Neely would have been tossed around in a tangled web of institutions, each with limited power to change his course. Without stable housing, he would have found it nearly impossible to get the kind of consistent, holistic assistance he needed.
“Jordan Neely could have been one of a hundred other young people that I’ve worked with,” says Kerry Moles, a social worker who leads the Court Appointed Special Advocates of New York City, a non-profit that represents youth in foster care. “So it feels like a failure of the system that so many of us work so hard to improve.”
‘Just a MetroCard to Survive’
One constant in Jordan Neely’s life was dancing: he began imitating Michael Jackson’s moves as early as age four. As a 20-year-old, Neely had hoped to land a job in the nightlife circuit, his friend Espinal recalls.
Neely had little stability in the rest of his life. After his mother was murdered, he moved in with his grandparents but acted out and cut school. “He will not listen to me or his grandfather,” his grandmother told authorities in 2009. In 2010, Neely threatened to kill his grandfather, and ended up sleeping in the building’s hallway, neighbors said.
In the following years, Neely became one of roughly 11,000 other children, more than half of them Black or Latino, in New York City’s foster care system. Many of the children come in with significant trauma, only to encounter further abuse or unsafe conditions in foster homes. A significant number of children in foster care end up dropping out of school, as Neely reportedly did.
“If you look at PTSD symptoms and diagnoses, you’ll see a rate in children in foster care that’s similar to combat veterans,” says Erika Palmer, a staff attorney at Advocates for Children, a New York City non-profit that helps students in foster care. “It impacts them internally. You might see a child with their head down on their desk, or with their hoodie tied up over their face. They’re physically present, but they’re not learning. And they’re left to fall through the cracks.”
People in the system are in dire need of mental health care. “If we could provide really meaningful, long-term support, supportive, non-judgmental, culturally relevant and appropriate mental health services to every child, youth and family member involved in the child welfare system, it would be totally game-changing,” says Moles, of Casa-NYC. But that can be nearly impossible to get: “Any time we’re trying to refer people for mental health treatment, they’re often waitlisted, and it takes months and months.”
Larry Smith, a homeless 24-year-old who says he was close to Neely while in foster care, remembers Neely taking care of the children around him, even buying them food with his subway earnings. But Neely’s foster parents and foster care agencies ignored his mental health needs. “He was never able to get the care he needed at all,” Smith says. “He was never taken serious by anybody; nobody really cared. They felt like he had a big mouth.”
Moles says children in foster care can still thrive if they have a champion, like Casa-NYC’s court-appointed advocates. “All it really takes is one person who is in their corner and can be a cheerleader and a continuous support system for them,” she says.
Neely had no such advocate, Smith says. Neely struggled with his mental health until he was automatically discharged from foster care at 21 years old, “with just a MetroCard to survive”.
Prison-Like Shelters
After ageing out of foster care, Neely became homeless and began spending nights on the streets, in the subway system and New York City’s shelters.
New York City is one of the only places in the United States with a “right to shelter”: by law, authorities must provide a clean bed for the city’s homeless people – more than 70,000 by last count. But many of these facilities are notorious for crowded and unsanitary conditions where theft and assault is common.
Krys Cerisier, a homelessness organizer at Vocal-NY, a grassroots community group, compares New York City’s shelters to prisons: “A lot of folks who are released from prisons and jails often head to shelters first. And they’ll tell you, it’s the same thing,” she says. “It’s 10, 20 beds in one room, and everyone’s sort of on edge, nervous and scared.”
In many New York City shelters, residents aren’t allowed to stay past mornings, but must return before a strict night-time curfew or lose their bed. They can’t cook or even bring their food inside. “You don’t have autonomy over your own diet. There’s a lot of power that you lose when you are in these spaces,” Cerisier says. Often, the food that shelters offer is spoiled, unhealthy or inedible. “These are adults eating Frosted Flakes and a loaf of bread as a daily meal,” she says.
Getting mental health care while homeless is a nightmare. While there are some shelters set aside for people with serious mental health needs, 26% of homeless shelter clients with serious mental illness were not placed there, a city comptroller’s report found in 2022. Mental health shelters “aren’t actually equipped to deal with extreme levels of mental illness”, says Cerisier, “So it’s often easier for them to take people who don’t really need it, because they just need less resources.” And when people do end up having serious mental health crises inside shelters, staff often call the police – “so folks get arrested and dragged out”.
Advocates say a preferable alternative is “safe haven” shelters, with low entry barriers, no curfew and some on-site psychiatric resources. But the city’s roughly 1,400 safe haven beds aren’t nearly enough. (The mayor’s office says it’s planning to add a few hundred more by the end of the year).
An even better option is supportive housing: a more permanent kind of group living, with private rooms, shared bathrooms and kitchens, and social services on premises – a set-up that can help halt someone’s downward spiral, says Matt Kudish, the head of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City (Nami-NYC).
“If there is a mental illness highway, and at the end of that highway is jail or prison, we need as many off-ramps from that highway as possible, so that people who are living with mental illness have opportunities to get help instead of handcuffs,” he says.
But New York City law requires people to stay in a shelter for 90 days before they can apply for supportive housing, and even then, vacancies for units are scant. Recent data shows just 16% of New Yorkers who are approved for supportive housing actually get placed in a unit.
There are a few units set aside for young people exiting the foster care system, but demand far outstrips supply. Cerisier says even supportive housing landlords often avoid leasing to people with extreme mental health needs.
The more common result, she says, is that “the people who actually need help end up on the train or on the streets”.
A Patchwork of Care
As Jordan Neely rode the trains around New York City, he crossed paths with another layer of the city’s social safety net: homeless mobile teams.
There are the city’s mobile crisis teams (MCT), run by hospitals or non-profits, which are designed to rapidly respond to someone having a mental health crisis, and hospitalize them if necessary.
Separately, there are mobile treatment teams, which provide continuous care to assigned homeless people with mental illness. In agency lingo, they’re called assertive community treatment (ACT) teams, or intensive mobile treatment (IMT) teams for particularly tough cases. These consist of social workers, psychiatrists and peer specialists – referring to trained advocates who have experienced similar hardships as their clients. The waitlists to get treatment from these teams are hundreds of people long.
Beth Diesch, the director of homeless mobile teams for Community Access, a New York City non-profit, runs six of these teams: one ACT team and five IMT teams. Diesch says success requires building trust with clients, and that starts with respecting their autonomy: “If somebody is not in agreement with what a third party says their mental health treatment is going to be, they’re very unlikely to continue following it independently. If a doctor says ‘take this pill’ and you don’t think you need it, you’re not going to do it.”
If clients refuse treatment, Diesch tries to avoid calling the police. “If it falls on NYPD, it’s going to involve handcuffs, and people are often forcibly handcuffed to a bed in the ER setting. And there’s often a cocktail of Haldol and Ativan that can be forcibly administered to sedate somebody. It’s going to be traumatic, and at the end of the day, it’s largely ineffectual,” she says.
If clients are threatening themselves or others, she offers to accompany them to the hospital: “We never want to just sic the dogs on anybody and bump them off somewhere with no support.”
But the teams can struggle to keep track of their clients. “There’s so many different programs and so many different teams in the city that have access to pieces of the information” about a homeless person, says Diesch. “Often there’s duplication of outreach happening.” If a client ends up arrested or hospitalized, often the team won’t learn of it until days afterward.
Another issue is a lack of resources. The city sets the pay rates for IMT teams, and workers are underpaid, causing high turnover and burnout, says Cal Hedigan, Community Access’s CEO.
And ACT teams are funded by insurance reimbursements, which means the teams don’t get paid when treating homeless clients without coverage.
The Final Layer
Without stable housing or consistent mental health care, Jordan Neely quickly hit the system’s bottom layer.
Under longstanding New York City laws, police may forcibly hospitalize someone displaying threatening behavior, but last November Mayor Eric Adams issued a controversial directive empowering city workers to involuntarily hospitalize people with mental illness even if they pose no harm.
Over the last decade, police reportedly arrested Neely 42 times for infractions such as drug use and fare beating, and responded to another 43 calls for an “aided case”, meaning someone reported that Neely was sick, injured or mentally ill.
Notes from police and mobile crisis teams show his condition deteriorating over that span. In 2016, officers brought him to a hospital when he said he was suicidal, then again when he was threatening others on the street. By 2018, police were dragging him to the hospital every few weeks, even when he refused to go. By 2020, he had lost weight, was disheveled and said he’d been off his medication.
In 2021, Neely was arrested after punching a 67-year-old woman in the head, severely injuring her and landing him in Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail, on charges of second-degree assault. A judge released him in February, as part of a plea deal requiring him to stay at an intensive inpatient treatment center for 15 months.
But he walked out after 13 days and disappeared. Less than three months later, Jordan Neely was dead.
‘Jordan Needed Someone on Jordan’s Side’
Could things have turned out differently? After Neely’s death, Adams initially appeared to side with the killer: “I was a former transit police officer and I responded to many jobs where you had a passenger assist someone,” he said last week. He changed his tone in a speech on Wednesday, calling the dancer’s death a “tragedy that never should have happened”.
“There were many people who did care about a man named Jordan, but it wasn’t enough this time, and we must keep trying before we lose another Jordan,” Adams said.
Adams also used the moment to reaffirm his involuntary hospitalization directive, something that he called to be passed as a state law. “People in crisis often need extended hospital care to fully recover.”
That’s a mistake, says Charles Sanky, a New York City emergency physician, who says the city often treats the emergency department as a “stop gap, end-all-be-all, where if we have nowhere else, that’s where people go”. In reality, the ER tends to be overcrowded and underresourced, without the “space or all the tools to actually intervene in a meaningful way”, he says. “And what ends up happening is that people get sent back out and they slip through the cracks.”
Kudish, the NAMI-NYC head, believes what Neely really needed was someone consistently in his corner: “One person who’s following Jordan. Not Jordan in the context of this hospital, then Jordan in the context of jail, Jordan in the context of mobile crisis treatment on the street, or Jordan in the context of a shelter … It’s not to say that the people who were working in these different siloed systems didn’t care about him, but at some point, their role ends,” he says. “Jordan needed someone on Jordan’s side.”
The best way to achieve that? Housing. “Give people a safe place to lay their head, and supportive housing with wraparound services,” Kudish says. “If you start to meet those basic needs, then maybe – and there’s no one easy answer to this stuff – but maybe all the rest would have started to fall in place over time.”
Near the end of Jordan Neely’s life, there was one last layer of New Yorkers who were trying to catch him: his fans.
Nine months before Neely died, one concerned fan started a Facebook group to look for him: “We want to support and help him, where ever he might be,” wrote the admin. “Fans are worried he could be homeless somewhere in NYC … let’s try to find Mr Neely.”
Last week, after Neely’s death, the group turned into a memorial. “You saw a lot of trauma in your life. You tried your best to use your talents to make others happy … when you were in crisis you deserved compassion,” one user wrote. “Instead others decided that you were a threat and silenced you forever. We will remember your name.”
During National Mental Health Awareness Month, we honor the absolute courage of the tens of millions of Americans living with mental health conditions, and we celebrate the loved ones and mental health professionals who are there for them every day. Treatment works, and there is no shame in seeking it. Together, we will keep fighting to get everyone access to the care they need to live full and happy lives.
As Americans, we have a duty of care to reach out to one another and leave no one behind. But so many of our friends, colleagues, and loved ones are battling mental health challenges, made worse by the isolation and trauma of COVID-19. Two in five adults report anxiety and depression, and two in five teens describe experiencing persistent sadness or hopelessness, exacerbated by social media, bullying, and gun violence. Drug overdose deaths are also near record highs, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people. It does not have to be this way.
As President, I released a new national strategy to transform how we understand and address mental health in America — supporting and training more providers, improving access to care, and building healthy environments that promote mental health. This work is a core pillar of the Unity Agenda that I outlined in my first State of the Union Address. Mental health is health; it affects everyone, regardless of race, gender, politics, or income. Promoting it is one of the big things that we can all agree to do together as Americans to make our country stronger.
The United States has long faced a shortage of mental health providers. It takes an average of 11 years to get treatment after the onset of symptoms, and less than half of Americans struggling with mental illness ever receive the care they need. This is especially true in rural and other underserved communities. That is why the American Rescue Plan made our Nation’s biggest-ever investment in mental health and substance use programs — recruiting, training, and supporting more providers at the State and local levels, including in our schools. Last year, when we passed the Nation’s first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years, it contained measures to further increase the number of school psychologists and counselors available to our kids, to make it easier for schools to use Medicaid to deliver mental health care, and to expand the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics that deliver 24/7 care. Additionally, we have invested in training more first responders to address mental health-related issues.
Last year, we also launched 988 as the Nation’s new Suicide and Crisis Lifeline so anyone in the midst of a crisis can receive life-saving confidential help right away. We added dedicated counselors trained in supporting LGBTQI+ youth to the 988 lifeline, and for veterans, we made it easier to reach the Veterans Crisis Line by dialing 988 and pressing 1 to reach trained crisis responders. We created a separate Maternal Mental Health Hotline to help mothers navigate mental health issues like postpartum depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders, which affect one in five pregnant and postpartum women. Far too often, these disorders go undiagnosed and untreated, so we have invested in programs that bolster screening and treatment and call specific attention to them during Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, which we also observe this month. Finally, we have passed historic laws that further require insurers to cover mental health care as they would any other kind of treatment, that lower prescription drug costs, and that expand health coverage generally. I am proud that we have seen historic health insurance coverage gains since I took office.
At the same time, we are fighting to expand access to prevention and treatment for substance use disorders, including opioid use disorder, which have devastated so many families and communities. This includes expanding access to mental health and substance use treatment in jails and prisons and during reentry to support people when they return home. And last year, we passed a law making it easier for doctors to prescribe effective addiction treatment. Anyone suffering should know they are not alone: We believe in recovery, and we celebrate the courage of the 23 million Americans who have come so far down that road.
We are also expanding mental health care for service members and veterans, to better honor our sacred obligation to the troops we send into harm’s way and to care for them and their families when they are home. We cannot keep losing 17 veterans a day to the silent scourge of suicide. My Administration is increasing access to mental health care, hiring more mental health professionals, and investing in programs that recruit veterans to help one another get the support they need. And we are working to expand rental assistance and job placement programs to help smooth veterans’ return to civilian life. I have also signed laws extending counseling, benefits, and other mental health resources to first responders and their families to help them heal from the trauma that they or their loved ones faced on the job.
There is much more to do. For one, we must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiments they are running on our children for profit. I have called on the Congress to limit the personal data that tech companies collect, to ban targeted advertising directed at minors, and to require social media platforms to put health and safety first, especially for kids.
We all have a role to play in ending the stigma around mental health issues. It starts by showing compassion, so everyone feels free to ask for help. If you are facing a crisis, dial 988 to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If you are a new or expecting mother, you can call 1-833-9-HELP4MOMS for confidential professional advice. If you are feeling overwhelmed or just need someone to talk to, ask your healthcare provider, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, or visit http://www.FindSupport.gov. If someone you know is going through a tough time, reach out and tell them you are there for them. We are all in this together.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2023 as National Mental Health Awareness Month. I call upon citizens, government agencies, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, and other groups to join in activities and take action to strengthen the mental health of our communities and our Nation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.
Random Acts By a Peer Specialist Part 8 by HOWARD DIAMOND
(This is part 8 of an ongoing series. To view from the beginning, click here.)
Three’s a Crowd, Three Strikes You’re Out, Three Incidents in Three Paragraphs Too Many Threes
Tuesday May 21 was not a good day for several people in Lake Town. Ruth Haines received two prank calls. Basically the message was the same and she was upset. These calls have been angering Ruth for several months and is often a topic of conversation in her therapy sessions with Jane Frederick. For fifteen months Ruth has been getting therapy from Jane. It all started that cold February day after he was referred to by Peer Specialist Holly Stephens.
Also, Holly’s Supervisor Taylor Thompson was almost in a horrific car accident on the way home from work. Timing is everything, as Taylor past Greene Avenue, then passing Wicks Road, Clark Street, Elm Street and Front Street. Suddenly, an auto speeding on Wicks Road turned onto Clark and plowed into another vehicle which was a third and a fourth. Fortunately, Taylor was two blocks ahead of the accident, but he was shaken, nevertheless.
Thirdly, after work there was a police report filed on Tuesday at about 6:30 pm. A person was found, bloody and semiconscious. The man looked familiar to a witness who identified him as Steve Washington and phoned the police plus an ambulance to take Steve to the hospital. After the cops arrived, she said she was up the block and saw most of what transpired. Since the couple of attackers were wearing masks, no one was able to name either one. Unfortunately, Officer Grey was off this week and won’t return until after Memorial Day. The next day, both Taylor and Holly visited Steve in the hospital. His right arm and hand were broken, plus he was black and blue almost everywhere. In addition, he was conscious and pretty much awake plus talking up a storm.
Summer is around the corner, fall is not far behind
When Officer Grey returned to work, he re-interviewed Steve several times over the next week. Steve tried to give a description of his assailants, but his information was not the same. This is probably due to his concussion and the hope is his symptoms will lessen and his recall will return. Holly was informed by Steve’s issues and followed up, when necessary and along with a new temporary assistant secretary, named Mary Blackman.
Mary was taken from the local temp agency, but she did not look the part. Her blond hair was long and stringy. Her blue dress had a slight tear around her left shoulder and her shoes were not polished. In addition, Mary had not worked in over eight months, but her office skills were superb, except for filing. She was five foot and maybe 100 pounds, but what a loud, dirty mouth, heard emanating everywhere around the office, including the bathrooms. After her first day, Taylor gave Mary instructions to cut her hair, wear no holy dresses, polish her shoes and to stop yelling profanities.
June brought summer for Lake Town. After a month, Steve was released from the hospital, but had a nurse and a physical therapist come to his four room apartment four days a week. Even though Steve did not like the arrangement, he enjoyed the extra attention. On alternate days, Holly would visit Steve and bring what he needed to recover. Also, some of Steve’s bruises and his bloody face are healing, but too slowly for Steve. However, his right arm will still be in a cast for three to four weeks and then his doctors will decide what to do next.
Ruth and Jane are still doing therapy once weekly. Although Ruth has steadily progressed, she has no memories of having a child or being raped. Jane is saying that there is no way to tell when her memories will return. According to Ruth’s plan, she might be working two days a week shortly after Labor Day in the Cafe in town. Near the end of August, Holly will help Ruth figure out a budget, so she does lose her disability benefits (SSDI ) or her medical insurance (MEDICARE AND MEDICAID).
JULY 4TH COMES IN LIKE A BANG AND ENDS WITH A BANG
Downtown Lake Town was getting ready for a parade. The committee had many volunteers, including Ruth, Holly, Taylor and Steve. Each lamppost was adorned with red, white and blue balloons, with Taylor helping to hang them. Along the parade route, Ruth plastered signs everywhere possible. At the end of the way, Holly assisted in decorating the waterfront area with red, white and blue streamers. While Steve ordered food and drinks from an assortment of local delis, cafes and restaurants plus purchasing water from the supermarkets.
Also, Marty from Generations booked the entertainment. Meanwhile, on the downtown streets, there was a group of suspicious characters looming in the shadows, especially the Mystery Man, who was spotted twice. Most evenings the vagrants would remove signs, take balloons off the lampposts and do other nefarious activities. These nights Officer Grey and the police staff had their collective hands full. Unfortunately the cops could not catch anyone.
It was a glorious day on July 4 with clear blue skies, temperature around 80 and little or no wind. At around 4pm, the parade began with crowds estimated at about 6,000 men, women and children. A group under the bandshell by the waterfront was playing 60s and 70s plus a selection of patriotic songs for people waiting there for the parade. When the parade arrived, Holly and Steve were handing out free water bottles to everyone. As people entered the waterfront area, volunteers including Ruth and Taylor handed out programs for the evening festivities that was scheduled to begin at 7pm and to end with fireworks at 9pm over the lake.
In the crowd were Marty from Generations and Ruth ‘s therapist, Jane Frederick. Promptly at 7pm, the program started with Lake Town Mayor welcoming everyone and introducing the emcee for the evening. Then, the people stood for the National Anthem and the slate continued. There was a magic show, a comedienne, a few musical acts. At 8:45 everything ended, the fireworks were still fifteen minutes away, so the crowd rested.
At 9:05pm, the emcee introduced the fireworks with a couple of bad jokes. The lights were turned down and the fireworks started over the lake. About halfway through the presentation at 9:15 bangs were heard in the crowd. Gunshots were heard everywhere and when the lights were in effect, sixteen people were hurt, three were sent to the hospital. One was Ruth. A message was left on Officer Grey’s at 5pm phone stating, BEWARE THE STREETS, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED, BEWARE THE STREETS“.
At the hospital, it was determined that Ruth had a gunshot lodged in her leg and lost some blood. Emergency surgery was necessary. Taylor was notified, he informed Holly and they agreed to meet at the hospital. At the Lake, Officer Grey and the police staff had many things to do. They had to disperse the crowd and try to investigate the gunshots. Two hours later, it just hit midnight, Ruth was still in surgery, Holly and Taylor were waiting for results. Shortly afterwards Marty arrived to lend his support.
Eventually at around 4am a doctor came by the sleeping trio. Dr. Rich Sanders, neurologist, gently woke them and informed them that Ruth had gone through several hours of successful surgery of her right leg where part of a bullet was removed along with several other fragments. The bullet parts are now bagged for safekeeping until an officer can pick them up. Also, a piece was removed from her head. Currently, she is sedated and asleep. No visitors are allowed
until 9am in the neurosurgical unit. Her healing will take a few weeks, but her discharge will possibly be several days from now. The trio all decided to leave.
For Ruth she was at, “the wrong place at the wrong time“.
The mysteries will continue in Part Nine of Random Act of a Peer Specialist in about a month from now. Can hardly wait. What about everyone else? See you in the NewsBlogs and Newsletters. Howard Diamond is a Certified Peer Specialist from Long Island.
(To view the whole series from Part 1 through Part 8, click here.)
NYAPRS Note: At last week’s NYAPRS Executive Seminar, representatives from Fountain House elaborated on several innovations that have been added to their historic model in recent years. One of them is detailed in the article below: a Times Square Recharge Station that is a key element in the NYC Community First program that was launched by the Center for Court Innovation, Midtown Community Court, Breaking Ground and NYAPRS members Fountain House and CUCS: Center Urban Community Services in 2021.
The program is based on a model that “focuses on building trusting relationships and meeting community members ‘where they’re at’ ‘before making linkages to services provided by community-based organizations,” in stark contrast to a model launched by City government last year that relies on police facilitation of involuntary hospitalizations. This approach begins with the provision of warm meal, clothing and blankets, as well as the opportunity to recharge mobile phones.
Congratulations to Fountain House, Breaking Ground, CUCS and NYC government for this powerful partnership that is successfully and voluntarily engaging and supporting people with major mental health and other challenges who are facing housing and food insecurity and social isolation.
See the City Limits column on the program written by Lauren Curatolo, Tom Harris, Brenda Rosen and now Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Dr. Ashwin Vasan for some background.
Recharge Station
In January 2021, Fountain House, Times Square Alliance, Midtown Community Court, and Breaking Ground came together to build Community First—a pilot project in Midtown Manhattan that uses a holistic approach. In this program, community navigators build trust with individuals, by first helping them meet their immediate needs—whether that’s a warm meal, clothing, blankets, etc.—and then connecting them with mental health services, housing resources, and medical treatment.
In July 2021, Fountain House, in an effort to build relationships and trust…. partnered with Project for Public Spaces to build a Recharge Station. Having worked on past place-based social service provision projects, we worked with the local fabricators to design and build a kiosk to be staffed by a Fountain House Social Practitioner and Fountain House members completing Transitional and Supportive Employment placements. As Fountain House’s incredible Social Practitioner Chloe Murtagh so aptly summarized it, “Project for Public Spaces helped Fountain House create a space to connect and experiment with new kinds of community building.”
Today, the kiosk serves people in need, who are experiencing homelessness, mental illness, and loneliness. Visitors and residents are also welcome. It’s a location all can use, which is crucial for building trust for those who are wary, have felt let down by service “systems,” or are afraid of being stigmatized. Functionally, the Recharge Station is designed to facilitate natural ventilation, keeping the inside cool in the summer. In addition, the kiosk was designed to have sufficient storage for the chairs and tables that expand the footprint of this safe haven during the day.
As relationships are built, needs are shared. On a typical day, social practitioners work with the Community First Outreach team to provide help including obtaining ID cards, Social Security cards, benefits, doctor’s appointments, housing applications, and more. If individuals have mental health needs, they are also connected directly with Fountain House membership and psychiatric care.
From December 2021 to May 2022, there were over 750 interactions with the target community, almost 500 of these being repeat interactions. In addition, there were more than 1,500 free cups of coffee given out, providing a token of comfort day after day. Based on this success, Fountain House is exploring the possibility of securing funding to expand the kiosk concept to more locations.
Community First: A Unique Approach to Street Outreach
Community navigators build trusting relationships with people in and around Times Square to connect them with mental health services, help with housing, and medical treatment.
Meaningfully Engaging Individuals
The coronavirus pandemic caused a significant increase in the number of people who are housing insecure and living with severe mental health issues and/or substance use addictions gathering in and immediately around the Times Square area. Whether it is a warm meal or a pair of shoes, our team of Community Navigators help people address immediate needs and then work towards linking them to longer term housing, services, and support. With programs like Community First, law enforcement no longer has to be the only response to mental health crises and homelessness.
The Community Navigator team heads out into the neighborhood with clothing, socks, PPE, blankets, food, and other materials to begin engaging individuals in conversations around their needs. These may be people who are experiencing homelessness, staying in a local shelter, or are in need of mental health services, harm reduction services, benefits connections, medical treatment, or any other number of services. Community Navigators also link people with services that may be difficult, if not impossible, for them to access like bathroom facilities, general wellness support, haircuts, showers, and laundry services.
I remember when I first met you all. You gave me a blanket when I was cold. — Participant
The Community First model differs from existing street outreach initiatives because it focuses on building trusting relationships and meeting community members “where they’re at” before making linkages to more meaningful and significant services provided by community-based organizations in the Midtown Community Court’s network. The time spent building trust with community members in need results in those individuals confidently engaging in critical services with greater chances for long-term success.
Our program has made a big impact since launching in 2021—we’ve engaged 466 individuals and completed over 1,045 interactions.
Meeting the Needs of the Community
Times Square Alliance approached the Center for Court Innovation, Midtown Community Court, Breaking Ground, and Fountain House during the height of the pandemic to ask for help designing and piloting an initiative to connect this population to the critical services they may need.
The end result is Community First—a holistic community response. We felt it was important not to employ or rely upon traditional policing to solve the community concerns that emerged in and around Times Square during the pandemic, and to implement an intervention that prevents people from ending up in the justice system.
I once lived out of a bag. With that being said, I really understand how things can change for the worst. At some point we all need a little helping hand. The people, the conditions, the circumstances, and boundaries that we respect is what sets this navigators program apart from the other outreach organization. — HARRY GLENN, Community Engagement Coordinator and Community Navigator
After six months of running as a pilot, Community First formally launched in July 2021 with support from Times Square Alliance and New York City’s Department of Homeless Services. Our teams of Community Navigators identify with the lived and shared experiences of the community members they work with.
In partnership with city agencies and community-based partners, including but not limited to, Fountain House, Breaking Ground, and CUCS: Center for Urban Community Services, Community First takes a client-centered, trauma-informed approach, protecting the agency of the client when creating service plans and identifying goals and next steps.
Community First’s team of Community Navigators operates from 40th Street to 53rd Street, 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue, including Restaurant Row.
