Albany Democrats are rejecting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to tackle New York City’s spiraling mental health crisis — setting up a legislative fight to be duked out behind closed-doors over the next few weeks.
The state Assembly and Senate either entirely omitted or scrapped parts of Hochul’s bid to expand involuntary commitment laws in their respective counterproposals to the governor’s budget plan released this week.
“We want to come to some recognition that people who need help, get the help that they need. We’ve always been supportive of that,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) told reporters this week.
The lower chamber’s one-house budget proposal omits Hochul’s proposal around expanding the necessary criteria to compel mentally ill people into psychiatric care.
But it includes provisions for strengthening hospital discharge planning and requiring review panels after serious incidents where mentally ill people fall through the cracks or harm others.
Heastie acknowledged that Albany needs to do something to deal with violent mentally ill people, especially in the subway.
“We want people to feel safe on the on the subways. Subways should not become temporary living places for people who have mental health issues,” Heastie said.
The senate’s one-house budget plan didn’t delve into details, but sources suggested Democrats in the chamber are willing to work out a compromise.
Mental health groups – many of which are pushing against the involuntary commitment component of Hochul’s bid – had mixed reactions to the counterproposals, but were generally hopeful that negotiations will result in a compromise.
“You can improve people’s lives and keep everybody safer without having to go to more forced treatment,” Harvey Rosenthal, CEO of the Alliance for Rights and Recovery told The Post.
Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, says he’s particularly optimistic to see the Assembly include a provision to require the incident review panels in its plan.
“We believe that a critical incident review panel will help create a level of accountability when tragic incidents occur,” Liebman said.
“We are pleased that the Assembly added the incident review panel to their one house bill. We will advocate strongly for inclusion in the final budget.”
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