Opinion: A healthier and safer city requires real solutions

From our sidewalks to the subway cars we take every day, the visceral reality of our fellow New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and mental illness is dire. Whether crime is up or down means very little if our mayor and governor continue failing to address the very reasons why so many people find themselves in such public states of despair. 

City and state leaders too often revert to symbolic and costly measures – placing National Guard troops, police officers, scanners and robots at subway stations – to fight perceptions of danger. Instead of a care-first approach that connects New Yorkers to services that follow best medical practices, people are shuffled away into a cycle of understaffed and under-resourced facilities with unknown outcomes. This expensive politicking has failed to make New Yorkers feel safe and can no longer replace a serious commitment to the evidence-based solutions we deserve. 

The Progressive Caucus is committed to ensuring quality care for the people who need it and dignified work conditions for those who provide that care. We will soon be releasing a plan focused on the cornerstones of a strong mental health and public safety infrastructure: 1) ensuring our city delivers a crisis response system that staffs up teams with medical experts and peer specialists to meet needs; 2) scaling up a fully funded mental health care system; and 3) uplifting the material conditions of the workers who provide this vital care. We envision this work as the beginning of a yearslong push for a city that provides the infrastructure, transparency and accountability necessary for true community safety. 

While it seems Mayor Eric Adams has a newfound commitment to tackling this challenging issue, for three years, the Adams administration has actively undermined the foundations of our city’s mental health network. The mayor cut the number of clubhouses available, leaving gaps in critical mental health programming that the City Council stepped up to fill; he defunded drug treatment programs; and he swept away homeless encampments while refusing to fix our supportive housing system. 

We find ourselves in yet another mess of the mayor's own making. The administration has defunded alternatives to the cycle of incarceration and let waitlists balloon for initiatives designed to break that very cycle. With Rikers now serving as “New York’s Largest Mental Institution,” it’s not rocket science to see how and why we got where we are, and it does not have to be this way.   

Living with mental illness is not a crime. The city’s EMTs, social workers, public defenders and peer specialists deserve dignity, training and a chance to do their jobs. And our caucus is committed to making New York a healthier and safer place to live.