NYAPRS Note: The following NYAPRS news release that featured comments from our Board members offers a companion to today’s e-news posting that features media coverage of yesterday’s extraordinary Annual Legislative Day.
N E W S R E L E A S E
Housing, Criminal Justice Issues Top NYAPRS 2015 Agenda
Albany, NY February 25, 2015
Upwards of over 700 mental health advocates from across New York braved the bitter Albany cold today to press a package of mental health reforms they said would help create housing to take homeless individuals out of the cold and advance reforms that would keep New Yorkers with mental illnesses out of the criminal justice system.
“Today’s bitter cold weather must underscore how critical it is that we provide adequate housing for New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities, especially those who are out on the streets right now,” said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS), the group sponsoring the annual day long advocacy event.
NYAPRS is a unique coalition that brings together tens of thousands of people with psychiatric disabilities and the providers who support them in communities in every corner of the state to advocate for a recovery and rights agenda.
“We’ve also come to urge legislative leaders and the Governor to fund initiatives that help New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities to stay out of the criminal justice system, or to help keep them from returning,” said Briana Gilmore, NYAPRS Public Policy Director. “We are proposing interventions at every step along the continuum in and out of our prisons and our jails,” Gilmore said.
The group is seeking an $82 million infusion to shore up housing units and services they say will otherwise have to cut staff and services.
“We must the crisis caused by steadily rising housing costs that are now almost 50% higher than current funding levels,” said Ray Schwartz, a NYAPRS Board member who operates supported housing units across Queens.
Top among their issues are the creation of 35,000 units of supportive housing for homeless New Yorkers with psychiatric and other disabilities. It is well documented that people with psychiatric disabilities make up a disproportionately large number of homeless New Yorkers, including the record number of 60,000 homeless individuals in New York City.
“The trauma and other horrors of homelessness, particularly chronic homelessness, can destroy lives and families, while overburdening health, social service, and criminal justice systems,” said Steve Coe, executive director of Community Access. “We are proposing to increase the availability of this specialized supportive housing upstate as well as in New York City.”
“We are urging support for a package of reforms that will decrease the hugely disproportionate numbers of people with psychiatric disabilities who are avoidably engaged in our state and local criminal justice systems,” said Carla Rabinowitz, NYAPRS Co-President.
NYAPRS is asking state legislators to ramp up specialized police training and response initiatives called Crisis Intervention Teams in localities across the state. They are also urging reforms that would “replace torture with treatment,” banning the use of solitary confinement of people with mental illnesses in state prisons. And they are urging the state to ensure prompt access to Medicaid at the point of discharge.
“We must ensure that people being discharged from state prisons and local jails get the chance to get the help they need right at the point of release to cut very high rates of recidivism,” said Rabinowitz.
NYAPRS is also backing state plans to boost local services with funds derived from the downsizing of state hospitals, the adoption of ‘Community First Choice’ alternatives to institutionalization initiative and a program designed to help community services prepare for the upcoming move to the managed care system.
“We have brought about 700 people to Albany today, each one of them representing another 200 New Yorkers with serious mental health needs,” said Alison Carroll, NYAPRS Board Co-Chair. “We hope and expect that our leaders will hear and respond to their needs.”