Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears On WABC-TV’s “Eyewitness News At 6:00”

November 29, 2023

Bill Ritter: This month marks the one‑year anniversary of New York Mayor Adams' plans to help and treat the mentally ill. He says since last November his so‑called Behavioral Task Force zeroed in on helping 100 chronically homeless people who suffer from severe mental illnesses. About 54 of those people are now off the streets and either in homes or in other supportive settings. Some progress indeed, but still a long way to go.

The mayor meeting exclusively with Eyewitness News Reporter NJ Burkett at Penn Station to talk about the program and the challenges still ahead.

Sandra Brown: I literally am scared to death and paranoid walking in certain areas of the subway station.

NJ Burkett: Sandra Brown says she still feels it, the sense of anxiety, even fear, when she sees unstable people in the New York City transit system.

Brown: They're a danger to others and themselves by being out there.

Burkett: It was exactly one year ago that police and outreach workers teamed up to give the severely mentally ill alternatives to living in the subway and in the streets; in some cases, forcing them into treatment and transitional housing.

Mayor Eric Adams: We said it's inhumane to walk by someone that clearly they can't take care of their basic needs. And that was a bold step.

Burkett: In an Eyewitness News interview, Mayor Adams insists that it was necessary then and that it's working now.

You chose to make this a priority when the previous administration didn't.

Mayor Adams: Right, you know, because this is not sexy. And you know, you could walk away with a real L, a real loss, and you have to really be willing to say I'm going to do what's right.

Burkett: Adams and Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom say 1,000 psychiatric beds have opened up, and dozens of the city's neediest and most challenging individuals are now in hospitalization or housing. Juan Riveras and Issa Asiedo are outreach workers with BronxWorks. They use persistence and persuasion to get people into treatment. Involuntary commitment is a last resort.

Juan Riveras: Is this really necessary? It's sort of the last thing in our bag of tricks.

Burkett: Richard Dunbar is now in an apartment after living here under the Bruckner Expressway for three years.

Do you think the mayor did the right thing?

[Richard Dunbar:] Yes, yes, because there are a lot of guys get off the street and now they ain't got to be out in the cold.

Burkett: Critics say the city needs to do more of that. “Sweeping deep seated problems out of public view is all about politics,” said the New York Civil Liberties Union. “There's no real success without permanent housing as the outcome,” said the Coalition for the Homeless.

In the past year, some 6,000 have been moved off the system and into shelters. The mayor insists the crisis required an immediate response. NJ Burkett, Channel 7, Eyewitness News.