If we’re learning anything from the tragic death of Jordan Neely on the floor of a Manhattan F train, it’s that the city seems helpless even when it knows exactly which mentally ill homeless most need help.
The latest: Neely should have been getting inpatient treatment at the time of his death, not roaming the subway on the fatal day.
Hospitalized under a plea deal in an assault case, he was allowed to sign himself out of inpatient treatment and, plainly, to go off any meds.
State mental-health law gave him the right, with the courts too ignorant and/or powerless to consider him in violation of the deal.
Plus, The Post has learned that Neely was on a Department of Homeless Services “Top 50” roster of those in desperate need of help: individuals cycling repeatedly in and out of shelters and mental-health-treatment centers.
Yet DHS doesn’t share the list, out of privacy concerns. So the NYPD was in the dark, and probably the mayor’s subway-safety outreach teams, too.
Maybe the list serves some purpose, but it sure does less good than it could.
Indeed, Neely’s family says he had a long history of mental illness that was never addressed properly. NYPD records show he had more than 40 arrests.
“They told me we have him, he’s in custody, we’re going to press charges,” says Anne Mitcheltree, 65, whom Neely randomly punched in the head in an East Village deli in June 2021. “I thought the judge would have forced him to take psychiatric meds, but it seems like he bounced out.”
Then, a November 2021 assault landed him in Rikers for about a year.
But whatever treatment he got there didn’t stick, either.
If anyone was a solid candidate for involuntary treatment, Neely surely fit the bill. But that’s not easy under state law, and the Legislature refuses to toughen it.
East Harlem City Councilwoman Diana Ayala recently called out another elephant in the room: “We are in a desperate need of inpatient rehabilitation beds in New York state . . . and the state has been very purposefully moving away from that model for many years, and I think that they get off the hook a little too easily.”
Indeed, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo allowed hospitals statewide to cut 850 psychiatric beds during the pandemic, and despite Gov. Kathy Hochul’s best efforts some 300 still hadn’t been recovered, last we checked.
So these broken people roam the streets and subways — with stopovers in ERs, shelters and jails — with the system at best “recycling” them time and again.
Lefties make noise about the answer being “proper funding,” but that won’t change much until the Legislature and City Council get serious about empowering (and requiring) the system to actually make a difference.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
