CPR Responds to Mayor’s Mental Health Plan

New York, NY -- Today, Mayor Adams announced his latest plan on mental health. Communities United for Police Reform released the following statement from CPR spokesperson Ileana Méndez Peñate (she/her).

“Today, Mayor Adams announced a mental health plan that lacked critical details on funding and implementation.  While all New Yorkers can agree the city must take steps to dramatically improve mental health care, infrastructure and services, how the city meets these needs matters. For years, CPR members and partners have consistently called for increased funding for comprehensive, community-centered care, including wrap-around services, and for the city to move away from police-centered responses to mental health crises. The mayor’s announcement today fell short of delivering on this demand.

“While components of the plan are important and long-overdue, such as increasing clubhouses for individuals with serious mental illness, the mayor has yet to answer important questions on how the various programs will be funded or how many people they will serve. Improving the quality and capacity of mental health services and closing the massive gaps that leave so many New Yorkers without mental health care requires critical actionable details necessary to implement real care and sufficient funding to make it a reality. 

“This announcement was made just a few weeks after the mayor cut the budget and headcount of the Department of Health and Mental Health and the Department of Social Services. The mayor continues to make claims about improvement while simultaneously cutting city funding for the agencies that would make these improvements a reality and expanding resources to the NYPD. 

“In addition, the mayor continues to prioritize policing-based mental health responses, such as his proposal to expand the BHEARD program which operates under NYPD oversight and involvement.  Instead, the mayor should be fully removing NYPD from all mental health responses, dismantling NYPD Mental Health Co-Response Teams, and investing in non-police solutions to the mental health crisis. New Yorkers deserve a mental health plan that has both the depth and breadth to not only address the immediate crises but to prioritize meaningful and compassionate long-term mental health care.”

About Communities United for Police Reform

Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) is an unprecedented campaign to end discriminatory policing practices in New York, and to build a lasting movement that promotes public safety and reduces reliance on policing. CPR runs coalitions of over 200 local, statewide and national organizations, bringing together a movement of community members, lawyers, researchers and activists to work for change. The partners in this campaign come from all 5 boroughs, from all walks of life and represent many of those most unfairly targeted by the NYPD.