Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on PIX11’s “PIX11 Morning News at 7AM”

August 15, 2025

Hazel Sanchez: New legislation aims to clean up open air drug markets in the city.

Justin Finch: It would provide support to those addicted and suffering from severe mental illness.

Sanchez: Mayor Eric Adams and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals Dr. Mitchell Katz are joining us now to discuss the Compassionate Interventions Act so thank you Mr. Mayor and doctor for joining us this morning, appreciate it.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. 

Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO and President, NYC Health and Hospitals: Thank you.

Sanchez: Okay so, let's lay this all out so Mr. Mayor part of your new proposal would give clinical professionals the right to bring someone to a hospital and allow a judge to mandate treatment against their will. So how exactly is that going to work and who actually makes the initial decision that someone needs to be involuntarily hospitalized?

Mayor Adams: Well Dr. Katz can go through the actual specifics, but what we do know, just as we did with those with severe mental health illness, we knew we could no longer ignore our brothers and sisters who are sleeping on the streets and don't know they need care. So we took a very active and progressive move in 2022 and stated that we're not going to ignore that anymore and legislators caught up to our thoughts and we were able to get legislation passed in Albany. 

We're doing the same thing with drug treatments. If you're under the influence of substance abuse, you don't know that you need treatment for the most part and those who are voluntarily going in, fine. But, those that aren't should not be on our streets injecting themselves with drugs or placing themselves in conditions that is harmful to them, to themselves and to others. Doctors can you go into the details?

Katz: So, right now when we bring someone to the hospital whether that's from a doctor, from a social worker, from a police officer because they're clearly not able to take care of themselves and then the substance is clear we have to release them immediately, but they, as the mayor has talked about, the compassionate thing is to offer them treatment. 

Those people who are willing to take voluntary treatment that's phenomenal and they will do well but there is a group of people who continue to ruin their lives and to make life very difficult for everybody else because of their substance use. This act would allow us to treat them.

Finch: We're talking about a $27 million investment to improve substance abuse treatment and outreach including adding more teams on the ground to help those who you mentioned are in such great need but who will be on those teams and will the NYPD be involved, Mayor Adams?

Mayor Adams: You know people often hear if the NYPD is involved automatically they think it's being inhumane and it's not. Do you remember that incident that happened in Manhattan around 42nd Street? A person stabbed three people. He was under not only a mental health illness but he was also under substance abuse and there are times when police officers can play a role for public safety, civilians should not do that alone. And there's times you don't need to police officer that's why you have mental health professionals that's there to assist when it's needed.

Katz: I've personally taken in people from the subway who, as a physician, but I could not have done it without the help of police officers so I do think it's an important partnership.

Sanchez: Dr. Katz, how are you going to make sure that people who start the treatment actually finish it?

Katz: Well part of the idea of recognizing that a certain number of people need involuntary treatment is to give enough time for the drugs to be out of the system for the people to be over the withdrawal for good nutrition for positive reinforcements. And so you can assess them and see where they are in their recovery.

Mayor Adams: And this is not a, we want to be clear, this is not a one size fits all. This is adding to what we've done 3,500 individuals who we have placed into permanent housing, 1,000 off our subway system. This is part of the clubhouse model that we rolled out early this week. This is our Bridge to Home program. This is a small number that refuses to refuse to get treatment no matter how much you attempt to do.

Finch: And Mr. Mayor, as we've discussed here some don't even realize how sick they are and we know there are spots around the city including the hub in the Bronx that has now become a focal point in this problem of open air drug use. We know the NYPD seems to be a temporary fix in addressing that but large scale long term how do we address issues like that?

Mayor Adams: That's so important. I'm glad you stated that because even when you walk through Washington Square Park you go to places out in South Jamaica. That is why we do everything from our safe haven beds to our permanent housing to our clubhouses. It is a holistic approach to deal with this problem to hand people off to the appropriate care.

Sanchez: Mr. Mayor, we want to pivot now to the Legionnaires’ cluster in Harlem. So the death toll right now stands at four but what's actually being done to safeguard the buildings against this disease?

Mayor Adams: Well we joined Dr. Morse yesterday in Harlem to talk about the remediations of the inspections and how we identified the cluster and private business owners once you, building owners, once you identify if Legionnaires’ disease is present they have 24 hours to remediate and we have had some great partnership to localize this problem in certain parts of Harlem and now we're seeing a decrease in the number of cases.

Sanchez: How do you make sure that those buildings continue after this check right now? They continue to check their systems?

Mayor Adams: They're required to do so and inspections are supposed to and must take place periodically. All the buildings, not only just those buildings that had the presence of Legionnaires’, but all the buildings with cooling towers are required to do so.

Sanchez: Are they fined if they don't?

Mayor Adams: That's what the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene they go in and they find out that there's some neglect on a part of the buildings they will be receiving an appropriate fine.

Finch: For any Harlem residents who are wary, suspicious about the upkeep of their buildings' cooling towers should they call 311 and call the city to try to get some eyes on that?

Mayor Adams: Yes, they can. If someone believes that someone in any way is not properly having the upkeep of their buildings, it's everything from the Department of Buildings to the Department of Health and Human Services and Mental Hygiene to the appropriate agencies. Once they call 311, 311 will route that to the appropriate agency based on what the complaint is.

Sanchez: Okay. Mr. Mayor before we let you go we want to turn to the mayoral race. I know you're not a big fan of polls but the latest poll has you fourth behind Curtis Sliwa. Now earlier this week you actually said that you know no one knew Zohran Mamdani and he was polling at one percent but now look at him he's ahead by 19 points. 

You're the mayor and people know you so how do you explain where you sit right now?

Mayor Adams: Well think about it, they know me, they know the name. But how many New Yorkers know how we turned around the city? When I go to town halls and when I go to senior adult centers and we start laying out what we've done I've heard this the most we didn't know that. 

People don't know we built the most affordable housing in individual years in the history of the city. They don't know that we no longer have low-income New Yorkers not paying income tax, that I reduced the cost of child care by 90 percent. What I have done with public housing, they don't know the story of how safe our subway system is. The safest in recorded history if you take out the first two years, I mean, first two years during COVID. 

So now is my opportunity to use my campaign money to tell the story and then people are not only going to know the name Eric Adams they're going to know how we turned around the city in less than three years and I'm proud of that record because of my staffers like Dr. Katz who's sitting here to the left of me.

Finch: All right it is a marathon not a sprint. Mayor Adams thank you so much for your time this morning and Dr. Katz, thank you as well. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

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