Mayor Eric Adams.
Credit score: Ed Reed/Mayoral Pictures Workplace.
We all know that so as to make New York Metropolis the most effective place to boost a household, we have to hold households and all New Yorkers wholesome. Which means making certain New Yorkers have entry to the psychological well being care they want.
Day-after-day we hear about psychological well being struggles from mother and father, youngsters, and older adults, and we see it in entrance of us on our subways and on our streets. In our State of the Metropolis tackle this yr, we made a dedication to deal with psychological well being considerations throughout all 5 boroughs. And day by day and all over the place, we’re delivering on that promise. This week marks what we’re calling “Mental Health Week” in New York Metropolis, the place we’re exhibiting all of the methods our administration is investing in options to assist New Yorkers’ psychological well being and provides New Yorkers the assets to have thriving lives.
Our colleges are the primary line of protection on the subject of psychological well being. That’s the reason we’re investing in psychological well being clinics in our public colleges and making it simpler for our younger individuals to get assist and therapeutic. We not too long ago opened 16 new school-based psychological well being clinics, which provides particular person, household, and group remedy, and which allow lecturers to get the coaching they should assist their college students. These clinics — now in additional than 230 colleges — open up a transparent street forward for our teenagers, giving them a spot to be taught coping expertise and resilience with out monetary burden on households. And it offers them a spot to share their issues and considerations, in addition to individuals to share them with.
We is not going to enable our children to fall into disaster and thru the cracks of the system. By Teenspace — our free tele-mental well being service — we now have introduced remedy and psychological well being assets to younger individuals throughout the 5 boroughs. And we now have designated social media as a “public health hazard,” turning into the primary main American metropolis to take this step. We’re getting households and our children the assist they want, the place and once they want it.
We’re additionally serving to join these with extreme psychological sickness to providers. On this yr’s State of the Metropolis tackle, we introduced a $650 million funding to deal with extreme psychological illeness and homelessness, which incorporates investments in Protected Haven beds, and runaway homeless youth beds — making this the biggest funding in road homelessness in our metropolis’s historical past. We all know that too many New Yorkers cycle between the hospital and homelessness, so we’re investing in “Bridge to Home,” a first-of-its-kind mannequin that gives homeless New Yorkers affected by extreme psychological sickness with a supportive facility to satisfy their remedy and non permanent housing wants.
Now we have been clear: The town is not going to abandon our homeless brothers and sisters to lives of struggling and ache. For the reason that begin of our administration, we now have opened 1,400 Protected Haven and stabilization beds and doubled the variety of road outreach groups.
We’re additionally taking preventive motion to get our weak New Yorkers the care they want and shield those that trip the subway. Since we launched our Subway Security Plan in February 2022, we now have related over 8,000 New Yorkers to shelter, with over 2,800 now in everlasting, inexpensive housing. And our Partnership Help for Transit Homelessness (PATH) program, which brings collectively legislation enforcement and skilled clinicians, are reaching extra corners of our subway system to assist individuals in want whereas maintaining each subway rider protected. For the reason that starting of PATH, the administration has contacted over 10,800 unhoused New Yorkers and delivered providers to over 3,300 individuals.
Now we have seen the tragic penalties when extreme psychological sickness on our streets and subways goes unchecked, and that’s the reason we’re preventing in Albany to go our Supportive Interventions Act, so we are able to present care to those that present indicators of psychological sickness however can not meet their primary wants.
Psychological well being is private for thus many New Yorkers, together with myself. I typically discuss concerning the emotions I felt as a police officer, the sentiments I felt once I misplaced my mom, the sentiments I gelt once I was recognized with diabetes and instructed I’ll lose my eyesight. That’s the reason I’ve made certain to take care of a wholesome routine that features my psychological well being, by way of issues like train, wholesome consuming, and meditation
Once we discuss well being care, we should deal with the mind as a lot because the physique as a result of we all know wholesome minds equal a wholesome New York Metropolis. That’s why our administration is investing within the providers essential to enhancing New Yorkers’ psychological well being.
Day-after-day, we’re delivering on our promise to make New York Metropolis more healthy and making certain that New Yorkers can entry the care and assist they should thrive.
