$37 mil more for psych aid

The city boosted funding for services to New Yorkers with serious mental illness in response to the deaths of four homeless men at the hands of a vagrant police say beat them with a pipe.

The $37 million annual investment announced Monday includes $23 million for new teams of mental-health responders so that police aren’t the first line of defense in a crisis, city officials said. Another $14 million will be spent to expand intensive services for those who are potentially violent. The NYPD will get a new Behavioral Health Unit and there will be more teams who touch base with severely mentally ill people.

“One in five New Yorkers suffers from a mental health condition,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement. “It’s our job to reach those people before crisis strikes.”

Calls to 911 about mentalhealth crises have nearly doubled in the last decade, from 97,132 in 2009 to 179,569 in 2018, according to the city.

The new funding is about 5% of the $700 million a year the city’s public hospital system allocates for in-patient care for acute mental health needs, and 12% of the $300 million the Health Department puts up a year. Other agencies, such as the NYPD and Education Department, also have mental health services.

Earlier this month the city launched a 30-day review of how agencies use Kendra’s Law and other mental-health policies following the murders of the four homeless men in Chinatown. Kendra’s Law provides court-ordered, involuntary care for people with mental illness who may be dangerous.

Randy Rodriguez Santos, 24 (inset), a homeless man with a history of mental health issues, faces four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for allegedly bludgeoning five men sleeping on the street.