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The Train Assymum

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https://nypost.com/2024/12/25/opinion/its-time-to-get-real-help-for-the-seriously-mentally-ill/

It's way past time to end the left's 'perversion of compassion'
and get help for the seriously mentally ill Post Editorial Board
6?7 minutes

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres got it 100% right this month when he
slammed progressives for their ?perversion of compassion? in allowing
vagrants to haunt our transit hubs and streets.

Particularly those who are mentally ill and in need of help.

They make life miserable ? and dangerous ? for everyone. Including
themselves.  Police and city outreach workers from a PATH team roam
Herald Square Station to offer the homeless shelter and city
services.  Police and city outreach workers from a PATH team roam
Herald Square Station to offer the homeless shelter and city
services.

Progressives think they?re being kind, considerate, compassionate
to these troubled people.

Civil libertarians think they?re protecting their freedoms.

Many of them truly believe they?re doing the moral thing by letting
these people fester.

They?re horribly wrong,

It?s not compassionate to let to someone sleep on the floor of Penn
Station or to permit violent ones to attack innocent people.

It?s not compassionate to let druggies shoot up and pass out on
the streets.

It?s not compassionate to leave a woman, who appeared to have a
walker and is thought to have been homeless, defenseless on an
F-train while another psycho fatally lights her on fire, as a
suspected illegal, drug-addled, homeless Guatemalan immigrant did
Sunday morning.

That attack shocked the entire nation.

Need more? How about the shouting maniac who stabbed a straphanger
watching Netflix in an unprovoked attack on board a Brooklyn train?

Just how many of these such incidents will it take for state
lawmakers to ditch their perverse ?compassion,? get some real help
for these people (whether they want it or not) and keep violent
ones away from innocent New Yorkers?

Do they really want to leave it to the Daniel Pennys to deal with
more Jordan Neelys?

Last week, The Post saw first-hand the uphill battle faced by the
city?s late-night outreach teams trying to remove troubled vagrants
wandering the 34th Street Herald Square Station?s underground
wasteland: Of 96 individuals encountered ? many of them struggling
with serious mental-health issues ? only 16 agreed to go to a
shelter or be hospitalized.

Why were 80 allowed to refuse assistance when they obviously needed
it?

The answer in a nutshell: Albany lets them refuse.

?We have the tools to stop the problem,? Rep. Torres told The Post?s
Kirsten Fleming. ?What is lacking is the political will.?

Bingo!

Blame for the city?s inability to take into custody ill-clothed,
unhoused, ranting vagrants ? who are clearly dangers to themselves
and/or others ? falls squarely on ideologues and bought-off lawmakers
in Albany who oppose taking action or fear political backlash from
far-left radicals.

Nor has Gov. Hochul come to the resuce. Her office now says she?s
working on a plan that will help make it possible for doctors to
keep people in psychiatric care longer, so they don?t end up back
on the street.

And the state Office of Mental Health published new regulations
requiring comprehensive outpatient discharge plans so individuals
committed for mental-health reasons don?t just cycle through the
system.  Unidentified suspect speaking to police at Coney
Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station after a tragic incident on
an F train Early Sunday morning, NYPD cops found an unidentified
woman engulfed in fire while sitting on an idling F train at the
Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station. Obtained by the Post

But how long before that goes into effect?

And will it be enough to fully address this widespread, horrific
problem?

Let?s be blunt: Albany must radically shift its mindset and give
the city greater authority to remove individuals who are unable to
meet basic needs for food, clothing and medical care or who otherwise
represent threats.

Once taken off the streets and placed into appropriate care
facilities, clinicians can more better assess their needs.

The criteria for involuntary commitment must be broadened, because
sufferers of serious mental illness lack awareness of their mental
disease or the ability to do what?s in their own best interest.

A sign of hope: a promising new bill ? the Supportive Intervention
Act, drafted by City Hall aide Brian Stettin, who authored Kendra?s
Law ? that calls for commonsense changes to state mental-health
laws that prevent the city from helping those who cannot understand
they need help.

The SIA would redefine ?danger to self? to include psychiatric as
well as physical risk of harm.

It would also grant diagnostic authority to licensed mental-health
counselors, expanding the number of qualified clinicians to conduct
assessments as members of the city?s outreach teams.

Licensed social workers and other clinicians are opposed out of
self-interest, and state Sen. Samra Brouk, chair of the Mental
Health Committee, is blocking it.

They need to stand down.

To get more at-risk persons into appropriate care, NYPD cops,
mental-health outreach workers and judges must be trained in applying
the new standard.

Gov. Hochul can greatly assist the city and Mayor Adams by putting
SIA into her FY 2026 state budget plan.

Brouk and other misguided progressives bleat about criminalizing
the mentally ill, but they fail to acknowledge it?s far more criminal
to let them go untreated.

They claim that the mentally ill are 11 times as likely to be
victims of violence and five times more likely to be murdered.

But that?s all the more reason to get them out of harm?s way.

Elected officials, from Hochul on down, have a primary duty to
protect severely mentally ill New Yorkers from themselves and others
? and to protect New Yorkers from them.

Maybe instead of offering thoughts and prayers for victims like
the unfortunate woman immolated on the F train, they?ll act swiftly
to pass the Supportive Intervention Act.

True compassion demands real action to prevent the next tragedy.

Our political leaders clearly have the tools to care for those who
need help and to keep New Yorkers safe. It?s time for them develop
the will.

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The Train Assymum Ruben Safir <mrbrklyn@panix.com> - 2024-12-27 18:43 +0000
  Re: The Train Assymum vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com - 2024-12-28 05:46 +0000

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