Mayor Eric Adams’ expansion of involuntary removal is harmful to people in New York living with serious mental illness. Mayor Adams and his administration must change the focus from the use of heavy-handed, law enforcement driven responses to addressing mental health crises to community-based mental health care and programming rooted in self-determination, dignity, and agency. Involuntary removals by law enforcement can be dehumanizing and puts our community at needless risk. Nationally, people living with serious mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than the general public. It’s not the mental health crisis that puts people in danger. It is the wrong responder providing the wrong type of response that ultimately leads to tragic consequences.

There are more than 1,000 people in New York City living with serious mental illness who are on waiting lists for government-funded community programs. The city and state must expand funding to community-based recovery models. This includes respite centers, supportive housing, peer models, safe havens, housing first initiatives, community based mental health clinics, good discharge planning and after care once someone is hospitalized and clubhouses like Fountain House, which will greatly reduce the need for crisis response in the first place.

Evidence shows people with SMI who are provided the opportunity to voluntarily take part in community-based peer support models, such as Fountain House, can achieve lasting recovery. Social practice models also help build trust and resilience, reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness, and help people succeed in achieving stability and independence. We should be creating more such proven opportunities to recover rather than expanding involuntary removal.

Now is the moment to create and resource a comprehensive continuum of care plan — and to do so in partnership with people with lived experience of mental illness, as well as organizations and professionals who have effectively served this community. In doing so, we not only use public resources more effectively and mitigate the need for coercive responses, but — most importantly — enable people with SMI to recover and thrive.

The greatest city in the world can and should be the most humane and most visionary in doing what we know works.