New York City wants to hospitalize homeless people deemed psychiatric against their will

Judging that New York is suffering from increasing insecurity, its mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday a plan to hospitalize against their will the homeless present on the streets and subways and considered psychiatric patients.

“If people with serious mental illness are homeless and pose a danger to themselves, we have a moral obligation to help them get the treatment and care they need,” the Democratic city councilman, a former police officer, told reporters. ranked in the center. right and that he has made the fight against violence the cornerstone of his municipal policy.

Bill expected next year

A bill should be submitted in 2023 to the New York State legislature and executive branch to provide for police, security, public health and welfare services to intervene on public roads and in the subway to possibly arrest and hospitalize by force. homeless people suspected of suffering from mental and psychiatric disorders.

“There continues to be a misconception that we can only help someone against their will if they are violent, suicidal, or present a risk of immediate danger,” Eric Adams argued.

“It is a myth that must disappear. We will do everything possible to help those who suffer from mental illnesses that put them in danger and prevent them from meeting their basic needs,” said the mayor.

Some 50,000 homeless people in New York

Eric Adams, in power since January, immediately pledged to drive the countless homeless people who survive there from his metropolis’ gigantic subway network. In particular, after the murder at the beginning of January of an Asian-American woman, pushed on a road by a man known to hospital and police services, dragging herself along the docks and suffering from psychiatric disorders.

There would be 50,000 homeless in New York according to estimates from associations and social services.

In a context of an increase in the number of crimes and misdemeanors observed in New York in 2021 after the pandemic, the feeling of insecurity continued to grow this year in certain districts of the city and in the subway, in particular after the murders with a weapon fire or stab.

According to weekly statistics from the New York Police (NYPD), 391 people were killed in the metropolis between January 1 and November 27, compared to 440 in the same period in 2021.