{"id":57728,"date":"2020-09-01T02:57:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/by-dumping-mentally-ill-prisoners-homeless-on-streets-de-blasio-hurts-everyone\/"},"modified":"2020-09-01T02:57:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T23:57:00","slug":"by-dumping-mentally-ill-prisoners-homeless-on-streets-de-blasio-hurts-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/by-dumping-mentally-ill-prisoners-homeless-on-streets-de-blasio-hurts-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"#By dumping mentally ill prisoners, homeless on streets, de Blasio hurts everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#By dumping mentally ill prisoners, homeless on streets, de Blasio hurts everyone<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-wrapper\" role=\"main\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>        August 31, 2020 <span>|<\/span> 7:57pm           <\/p>\n<div id=\"featured-image-wrapper\">\n                        Enlarge Image<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"New Yorkers walk past a homeless man passed out on 24th Street in Manhattan.\" id=\"standard-article-image\"  src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/081220nychomeless22MATT.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=618&#038;h=410&#038;crop=1\" ><\/img><br \/>\n                <span>New Yorkers walk past a homeless man passed out on 24th Street in Manhattan.<\/span><br \/>\n                            <span>Matthew McDermott<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n                        Walls riddled with bullet holes. Blood and empty casings on the streets. Syringes and open-air shooting galleries. Addicts walking around in a daze. Emboldened criminals menacing frightened residents. These are the results of the reckless anti-law-and-order policies enacted by many of my colleagues and our mayor.<\/p>\n<p>Compounding these crises are a pair of related issues: an \u00ad epidemic of untreated serious mental illness and the emptying of the correctional facility on \u00adRikers, which brings untreated inmates to your doorstep.<\/p>\n<p>New Yorkers struggling with mental-health issues are people with problems, not problem people. They are a vulnerable group in need of compassion and treatment. Simply moving them around doesn\u2019t help anything. When officials don\u2019t properly care for the mentally ill, they only increase public animosity against them. And other vulnerable groups \u2014 especially seniors and children \u2014 pay a price, too.<\/p>\n<p>A CVS and a Walgreens store in my district have been robbed repeatedly since the city opened a homeless shelter in Glendale. Homeless, often mentally ill people stand around these and other \u00adlocal businesses and harass customers, demanding money with threats. Seniors are afraid to go to their pharmacies and grocery stores.<\/p>\n<p>There are delivery services available, yes, but not every senior can afford the added cost or understand how to use the \u00adonline systems. It\u2019s already too hard for our seniors to get the medication they need because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of drugs and insurance \u00adissues. They now also worry about getting harassed or attacked by untreated substance abusers and\/or repeat violent offenders.<\/p>\n<p>Seniors, who have spent their lives paying taxes, raising families and contributing to our city, shouldn\u2019t have to live in fear.<\/p>\n<p>Nor should children. A man in my district was reported to the police and to my office for masturbating in public for two hours, in plain view of children. Men have been seen washing themselves nude in the park. A stairwell near the shelter has frequently been reported as a favorite place for untreated drug users to shoot up. Substance abuse is a devastating and common form of mental illness that often leads to homelessness and crime. Repeat offenders are let back out, rather than being treated in a secure facility \u2014 like the one on Rikers Island.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the huge price tag and smoke-and-mirrors p.r. of \u00adCo-Mayor Chirlane McCray\u2019s ThriveNYC, we are failing our mentally ill, and it\u2019s destroying our city. The billion-dollar price tag for Thrive might be justified if there were a single metric that suggested it worked. As I found out when I repeatedly asked, there isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing compassionate about withholding the treatment they need from the mentally ill. But releasing mentally ill \u00adinmates onto the street without making sure they\u2019re treated takes a special form of folly.<\/p>\n<p>Despite attempts to dismiss protests against jails, halfway houses and shelters in our neighborhoods as mere \u201cNIMBY\u201d syndrome or even racism, the truth is that everything the protesters feared has come to pass: crime, harassment, public drug use, \u00adindecent exposure and a degraded quality of life. Our community boards have been ignored, while policy is dictated only by slogans that fit on lefty \u00adagitprop posters.<\/p>\n<p>The rush to empty out Rikers needs a rethink, stat.<\/p>\n<p>Rikers Island inmates were often treated for their afflictions in the island\u2019s modern Program to Accelerate Clinical Effectiveness units. These can be made more effective with more funding that would still be a drop in the fiscal bucket compared to the construction and operation of neighborhood jails \u2014 not to mention the Thrive boondoggle.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor supported increased funding for these units in his executive budget before \u201cClose Rikers\u201d became a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a>-justice-warrior battle cry.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why my bill in the City Council would establish a task force to study the cost of renovating Rikers Island, compared to projected cost of building neighborhood jails and other such out-of-Rikers programs.<\/p>\n<p>Rebuilding the island\u2019s facilities and instituting new programs for inmates could potentially save the city billions of dollars, as well as provide mental-health treatment, instead of putting them on the streets \u00aduntreated. I see no benefits to closing Rikers Island and no harm in considering the cost of improving it.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start by examining and improving the mental-health facilities on Rikers Island.<\/p>\n<p>Our communities clearly oppose new community jails and similar facilities. Rikers Island already exists. Effective mental-health care can unite the city and make us all safer.<\/p>\n<p><em>Robert Holden represents the 30th District, covering parts of Queens, in the City Council.<\/em>\n            <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Opinion <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>if you want to <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">watch Movies<\/a> or Tv Shows go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/dizi.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/08\/31\/by-dumping-mentally-ill-prisoners-homeless-on-streets-de-blasio-hurts-everyone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#By dumping mentally ill prisoners, homeless on streets, de Blasio hurts everyone&#8221; August 31, 2020 | 7:57pm Enlarge Image New Yorkers walk past a homeless man passed out on 24th Street in Manhattan. Matthew McDermott Walls riddled with bullet holes. Blood and empty casings on the streets. Syringes and open-air shooting galleries. Addicts walking around&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62559,62561,62560],"class_list":["post-57728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-by-dumping-mentally-ill-prisoners","tag-de-blasio-hurts-everyone","tag-homeless-on-streets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}