Opinion

Mayor Eric Adams steps up to get NYC’s seriously mentally ill into the treatment they need

Mayor Eric Adams’ new mental-health plan is exactly what the city needs to finally help New Yorkers whose chronic and untreated mental illness makes them unable to care for themselves or renders them a danger to others.

Credit Gov. Kathy Hochul with an assist for the new state guidance expanding the qualifying criteria for involuntary commitment under Kendra’s Law: Now those obviously unable to care for themselves also can be mandated into treatment.

“If severe mental illness is causing someone to be unsheltered and a danger to themselves, we have a moral obligation to help them get the treatment and care they need,” Adams rightly said Tuesday.

It’s not just the expanded guidelines: Front-line cops, social workers and mental-health-treatment teams will be retrained to more diligently escort those with obvious issues in for psych evaluation, with a new hotline providing quick answers before they take someone to a hospital.

Even City Hall’s usual critics seemed to embrace Adams’ plan to hospitalize persons suffering from chronic and untreated mental illness.

But the Legislature’s failure to strengthen Kendra’s Law delayed rolling out City Hall’s program sooner. Come January, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie must work with Adams and Hochul to change state law to make it easier for those suffering from untreated mental illness to receive inpatient treatment.

Living in the throes of chronic mental illness and being homeless are not civil rights, they are civil wrongs.

Kudos to mayor Adams for taking the necessary steps to bring dignity and help to mentally ill homeless New Yorkers.