NY must restore involuntary commitment to end Midtown chaos

Kudos to City Councilman Erik Bottcher for rejecting the status quo as people suffering from untreated mental illnesses and substance abuse die slowly on our streets.

Last month Bottcher, a Democrat representing Manhattan’s West Side from Greenwich Village to Times Square, wrote to Mayor Adams about the “dire,” “heartbreaking” chaos enveloping his district as mentally ill and drug-addicted vagrants flood his district unchecked.   

What Bottcher’s letter describes, and what several recent New York Post stories show, are what we in the Times Square area have been struggling with on the ground for years. 

Shining a light on this issue will help us solve these perennial problems.

Crime is down in Times Square and the Garment District thanks to a commitment by the mayor and the hard work of the NYPD and the Manhattan DA — but visitors and residents are plagued by deteriorating conditions that cannot solely be solved by enforcement.

We need legislative changes, not just more resources, to solve these issues. 

The behaviors depicted in The Post’s stories — public intoxication, sleeping on benches and sidewalks, panhandling and more — are awful but not unlawful. 

The city’s and state’s decriminalization of lower-level offenses brought these challenges to our streets, parks and pedestrian plazas.

The consequence has been a level of disorder that cannot and should not be ignored. 

We are not suggesting that simply going back to aggressive enforcement is the solution, but we need to find a balanced approach. 

It’s time for state and city lawmakers to work together with outreach workers, mental-health professionals and communities to come up with new regulations to help those in need of assistance while improving the quality of life for residents, workers and visitors. 

Too often, we hear that these individuals have a constitutional right to suffer on our streets — an excuse that keeps us from finding solutions.      

In recent months, the state and city have sought to apply social-services responses to this worsening crisis.

The mayor, in partnership with District Attorney Alvin Bragg, has established dedicated outreach teams and has worked with the Midtown Community Improvement Coalition to address local concerns.  

Gov. Hochul has deployed S.O.S. teams to the area to help connect the mentally ill with services. Peer navigators funded by the Times Square Alliance also support people in crisis.

These efforts have had an impact: We have moved some community members into housing and health care.

But every day we are faced with barriers to helping these people — barriers resulting from well-meaning yet misguided policies at the state and city level.

Most of the individuals we reach out to refuse help and remain on our streets in deplorable condition.  

The city spends millions of taxpayer dollars on contracts with social service organizations that are never held to account beyond tallying the number of people they approach.

The Legislature has resisted passing the Supportive Interventions Act, legislation proposed by the mayor to make sensible changes to state mental health laws that prevent us from helping the many community members who cannot understand that they need help.

The bill would clarify and broaden the criteria to hold a person for involuntary treatment when they lack awareness of their own mental illness.

It would expand the range of mental health professionals legally entitled to direct a person in crisis to a hospital for evaluation, and would ensure that all psychiatric hospital patients are discharged to court-ordered outpatient treatment where appropriate.

In Times Square, the Garment District and the surrounding neighborhood, we watch as people’s mental health deteriorates every day. As a society we must do more for those who wander our streets in crisis. 

These New Yorkers are suffering with mental illness, substance addictions or both.

They need tailor-made strategies, including mandatory medical intervention — not just repeated, futile outreach attempts — to save their lives.

For years we have heard elected officials deny that a problem exists, or point fingers at one another in blame. 

It’s time to come together and accept ownership of the problem.

We must challenge preconceived ideological biases and work together to enact effective, evidence-based solutions that will help all New Yorkers. The Supportive Interventions Act is a good place to start.

We cannot and should not accept the status quo.

Barbara Blair is president of the Garment District Alliance and Tom Harris is president of the Times Square Alliance, business improvement districts in Midtown.