If we’re studying something from the tragic demise of Jordan Neely on the ground of a Manhattan F prepare, it’s that the town appears helpless even when it is aware of precisely which mentally ailing homeless most need assistance.
The newest: Neely ought to have been getting inpatient remedy on the time of his demise, not roaming the subway on the deadly day.
Hospitalized underneath a plea deal in an assault case, he was allowed to signal himself out of inpatient remedy and, plainly, to go off any meds.
State mental-health regulation gave him the proper, with the courts too ignorant and/or powerless to contemplate him in violation of the deal.
Plus, The Put up has discovered that Neely was on a Division of Homeless Providers “Prime 50” roster of these in determined want of assist: people biking repeatedly out and in of shelters and mental-health-treatment facilities.
But DHS doesn’t share the checklist, out of privateness issues. So the NYPD was in the dead of night, and doubtless the mayor’s subway-safety outreach groups, too.
Possibly the checklist serves some function, however it certain does much less good than it may.
Certainly, Neely’s household says he had a protracted historical past of psychological sickness that was by no means addressed correctly. NYPD information present he had greater than 40 arrests.
“They instructed me we now have him, he’s in custody, we’re going to press prices,” says Anne Mitcheltree, 65, whom Neely randomly punched within the head in an East Village deli in June 2021. “I assumed the choose would have pressured him to take psychiatric meds, however it looks as if he bounced out.”
Then, a November 2021 assault landed him in Rikers for a couple of yr.
However no matter remedy he bought there didn’t stick, both.
If anybody was a stable candidate for involuntary remedy, Neely absolutely match the invoice. However that’s not straightforward underneath state regulation, and the Legislature refuses to toughen it.
East Harlem Metropolis Councilwoman Diana Ayala not too long ago referred to as out one other elephant within the room: “We’re in a determined want of inpatient rehabilitation beds in New York state . . . and the state has been very purposefully shifting away from that mannequin for a few years, and I feel that they get off the hook just a little too simply.”
Certainly, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowed hospitals statewide to chop 850 psychiatric beds through the pandemic, and regardless of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s greatest efforts some 300 nonetheless hadn’t been recovered, final we checked.
So these damaged folks roam the streets and subways — with stopovers in ERs, shelters and jails — with the system at greatest “recycling” them again and again.
Lefties make noise concerning the reply being “correct funding,” however that gained’t change a lot till the Legislature and Metropolis Council get critical about empowering (and requiring) the system to really make a distinction.
