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Hundreds of beds for NYC detainees with serious physical, mental illnesses delayed by years
By
Jessy Edwards
Published Oct 18, 2023
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Jessy Edwards / Gothamist
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Jessy Edwards
Published Oct 18, 2023
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A plan to move more than 360 detainees with serious mental and physical health conditions off Rikers Island and into state-of-the-art therapeutic beds in borough-based hospitals has been delayed by years with no clear date of completion in sight, city jails officials told the New York City Council on Wednesday.
In a joint oversight hearing held by the Council's criminal justice and hospitals committees on Wednesday, members grilled officials from the Department of Correction and Correctional Health Services about what is holding up three new therapeutic facilities at Bellevue, Woodhull and North Central Bronx hospitals.
The 104-bed facility at Bellevue was scheduled to open in December 2022.
“If it had come to pass, 104 people would already be off Rikers Island and be in therapeutic housing,” Councilmember Carlina Rivera told department officials. “What happened?”
Jails officials said the unit was delayed after city leadership changed in 2022, and that new project leaders put in charge flagged a number of “security issues” in the design.
Jails officials said they could not give a firm timeline on when the Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit facilities would be opened and could not say when they could get the information to the Council.
Therapeutic beds promised in 2019
In 2019, the administration of then-Mayor Bill De Blasio announced plans for the Department of Correction to develop secure, guarded units with hundreds of therapeutic beds inside city hospitals to care for detainees with the highest medical needs. The people who were meant to be served included those with serious mental health issues, substance abuse issues and physical health issues, such as detainees with cancer who need chemotherapy.
The goal was to give detainees better access to treatments they could only access in a hospital environment – such as chemotherapy. It would also remove seriously unwell detainees from the notoriously dangerous Rikers Island facility.
“The services they may need that are only available in the hospital will be just an elevator ride away, not hours away,” Correctional Health Services Senior Vice President Patsy Yang told the committee Wednesday, adding that the design was “night and day” compared to the Rikers Island health care facilities.
A total of 363 “therapeutic” beds are planned for the three hospitals.
At the hearing, department officials said the timeline for the Bellevue project is more than two years behind schedule. Construction is now estimated to be completed by the end of 2024. After that, officials will still need to hire staff and take other steps to make it operational.
The 259 remaining beds planned for Woodhull and North Central Bronx hospitals are “on pause” until the Bellevue project is completed, Yang said.
More than 50% of people in city jails have some type of mental health diagnosis, with almost 1 in 5 deemed to have serious mental illness, according to the latest Mayor’s Management Report.
“Your failure to follow through on therapeutic beds is incredibly harmful to the people who should be off of Rikers Island,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler told department officials. “It is wildly disrespectful for you to show up to a City Council hearing with no information of consequence whatsoever. You are absolutely demonstrating to us and the people of New York City that you don't care about therapeutic units, and I just want you to hear it as plainly as possible: I am disgusted in the DOC.”
The meeting happened a day after the Correction Commissioner Louis Molina and his staff snubbed a meeting with its oversight board because they said they were too busy preparing for Wednesday's City Council meeting.
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Jessy Edwards
Jessy Edwards covers incarceration and public safety. Before working at Gothamist/WNYC, she covered daily and breaking news at NBC New York and Brooklyn news at BK Reader. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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