Albany lawmakers are nearing a deal on expanding involuntary commitment laws — a key plank in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to tackle New York City’s mental health crisis.
State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters Tuesday that negotiations have moved beyond an impasse, but details have yet to be locked down.
“I think involuntary is close,” he said in the state capitol.
Disagreements among Democrats and progressive pushback against Hochul’s involuntary commitment and discovery law proposals have helped push the state’s budget far past its April 1 deadline.
The horse-trading on involuntary commitment came as New Yorkers reeled from back-to-back bloody incidents involving mentally ill alleged attackers.
A maniac with schizophrenia allegedly slashed his four young nieces with a meat cleaver before NYPD officers shot and grievously wounded him Sunday.
A day later, a homeless man who’d been through dozens of mental health hearings, randomly slashed a woman in the neck in broad daylight on a SoHo street, sending her to the ICU, cops said.
Heastie didn’t say whether lawmakers have agreed to part of Hochul’s proposal that would expand the criteria to force mentally ill people into psychiatric care — a bid omitted from the Assembly’s own budget plan.
He did reveal that talks include a pilot program for county-level behavioral health teams that’ll work with police on 911 calls, as well as rigorous discharge planning for people once they’re dismissed from a psychiatric hospital.
“Members also wanted to make sure that when people were discharged, they weren’t being discharged back out into the same set of circumstances that may have brought them there in the first place,” he said.
Assembly Mental Health Committee Chair Jo Anne Simon (D-Brooklyn) said she hasn’t seen specific language around a prospective deal on involuntary commitment, despite Heastie’s crowing.
She has been publicly opposed to Hochul’s involuntary commitment proposal, arguing it will be less effective unless other related components — such as providing supportive housing for people who are mentally ill — are strengthened as well.
“I will say it’s close when I see any language. I haven’t seen anything at this point,” she said.
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