Committee on Mental Health and Substance Use meeting
March 4, 2026, 10:00 AM
The committee held an oversight hearing on how New York City connects residents to mental health services and heard two bills: Int 0722-2026, on reporting and publication of mental health data, and Int 0741-2026, to establish a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene task force on the NYC 988 crisis line.
What was discussed
- Chair Cabán opens with the Jabez Chakraborty case and sponsors present the bills Chair Tiffany Cabán opened the oversight hearing on connecting New Yorkers to mental health care by recounting the case of Jabez Chakraborty, a 23-year-old with schizophrenia shot by police during a January crisis after his family was repeatedly failed by fragmented care, framing the gap 'between
- DOHMH and the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health lay out the crisis continuum Dr. Jean Wright, Executive Deputy Commissioner at the Health Department, described the crisis continuum as 'someone to call, someone to respond, somewhere to go' — NYC 9-8-8, mobile crisis teams (over 18,000 referrals in FY25), and crisis residences — plus long-term mobile treatment via SPOA, ACT
- Who answers a 9-8-8 call, and what happens if the caller needs a referral? Chair Cabán questioned Assistant Commissioner Jamie Neckles on 9-8-8 operations. Neckles said Vibrant handles about 400,000 contacts a year, every call answered by a crisis counselor after about a month of training, with New York City calls routed to local counselors and overflow going to a Long
- What happens overnight, when mobile crisis teams stop running at 8 p.m.? Council Member Shirley Aldebol pressed on the gap in mobile crisis coverage, which runs 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Assistant Commissioner Neckles said DOHMH attempted a 2019 procurement for overnight mobile crisis response but got no bidders, largely over provider safety concerns about entering homes
- How do SPOA, ACT and IMT work, and what is being done about the waitlists? Chair Cabán questioned Assistant Commissioner Neckles at length on the Single Point of Access and mobile treatment teams. He said SPOA clinicians review referrals within two business days, that 4,654 of 4,952 FY25 referrals were connected to care, and that people awaiting a higher level of care get
- Can the city publish more B-HEARD data, and is 9-8-8 safe for undocumented New Yorkers? Chair Cabán pushed OCMH's Laquisha Grant to collect and publish more B-HEARD data, pointing to detailed quarterly dashboards from programs in Denver, Portland and Durham. Grant said reporting under the prior administration was near-annual, agreed with the spirit of Int 722, and said the office would
- Independent Budget Office presents its findings on B-HEARD's performance Cassandra Stuart and Ed Dolan of the Independent Budget Office presented their January report on B-HEARD, analyzing FDNY data from June 2021 through March 2025. They found eligible calls rose ninefold but the share of eligible calls actually assigned a B-HEARD unit fell from nearly 80% to 37%
- Provider advocates call for eliminating the ACT and IMT waitlists A panel of advocates urged expanding voluntary community-based care. Jordyn Rosenthal (Community Access) relayed frontline calls for interdisciplinary teams embedded in supportive housing and criticized over-use of coercive measures. Nadia Chait (CASES) called eliminating the ACT/IMT waitlist —
- Suicide-prevention and immigrant-serving groups stress trust, transparency and language access Fiodhna O'Grady and Kumari Cruz of Samaritans of New York supported all three items, arguing that transparency and autonomy — a diversity of voluntary services people can choose — are what make crisis systems trustworthy. Razia Begum (Arab American Family Support Center) reported a 54% jump in
- Durham's community-safety director shares lessons from the HEART program Ryan Smith, director of the City of Durham, North Carolina's Community Safety Department, testified by Zoom on the HEART alternative-response program's first 40,000 crisis responses. He reported only two minor injuries, teams feeling safe over 99% of the time, net savings of about $900 per response
- Justice, housing and clinic providers flag the gap between crisis response and ongoing care Additional witnesses described the disconnect between crisis systems and community care. Ruth O'Sullivan (Center for Justice Innovation) detailed mental health courts that divert people from incarceration into long-term treatment. Paula Magnes (Northside Center for Child Development) offered a
Agenda
3 items
- T2026-1168 Oversight - From Crisis to Care: How New York City Connects New Yorkers to Mental Health Services. Hearing Held by Committee
- Int 0722-2026 A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to the reporting and publication of mental health emergency response data Hearing Held by Committee
- Int 0741-2026 A Local Law in relation to the establishment of a department of health and mental hygiene task force on NYC 988, and to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to a public education campaign and reporting on NYC 988 Hearing Held by Committee