Two local legal services organizations that Legal Aid Society and the Bronx defender, went so far as to condemn the policy after a statement co-signing the housing crisis action was read as praising the move. “Put simply, more policing and involuntary hospitalizations do not promote public health or safety.” reads the Bronx Defenders’ follow-up tweets. “We urge the mayor to repeal this policy and instead invest in dignified, community-based health care and long-term, supportive housing.”
A homeless woman who just dismantled her structure on the street by the police and Department of Health as part of Mayor Adams’ policy to remove homeless encampments wonders where to go next, April 11, 2022, New York City , New York . All of the homeless people who were transferred said that the shelter system was too dangerous and they were living on the streets.Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images
So, if housing and legal experts aren’t pushing for it, who will? It is a continuation of our existing policies for dealing with people with disabilities, particularly those with mental illnesses, in this country. Let’s start in New York. In 1999, after a mentally ill person pushed another person in front of an oncoming New York subway train and killed them, upstate New York Kendra’s law passedto allow “Court Ordered Assisted Outpatient Treatment” for those identified as security concerns. Critics feared it could penalize those with mental illnesses if they didn’t stick to a treatment plan or refused medication.
As reported by the complaint in August 2022, more than 40 states followed suit in creating “Assisted Outpatient Treatment” or AOT laws, which can expose target individuals to punishment if they refuse a state-mandated treatment plan. “There’s always this rush to force treatment in response, but … we don’t have enough treatment services for people who specifically say, ‘I want these services,'” said Kimberly Mosolf, an attorney at Disability Rights Washington who fought against it AOT expansion of the state said the complaint. just this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the law into law a policy whereby people with certain disorders, including schizophrenia, “could be placed under guardianship and required to comply”.
The question of what autonomy to expect for people with mental health issues has been paramount in our culture since the 2021 fixation on the #FreeBritney movement that surrounded conservators. Britney Spears’ struggle to end her own heightened national consciousness is a key example of how people with disabilities, and particularly mental illness, are expected to relinquish all agency, be it to the state or to others. “Conservators are essentially value judgments that make estimates of a person’s abilities based on assumptions about how they think or move through the world,” writes the disability author se smith declares for female dog last yearmeaning that any diagnosis given is “considered an indisputable indicator of someone’s inability to take care of themselves”.