Pull the Plug on Thrive

Forty months after ThriveNYC’s official launch, New Yorkers are still looking for hard evidence of mental-health gains from its $850 million out the door. Giving Mayor de Blasio something to brag about to a six-person audience in New Hampshire doesn’t count.

Remarkably, Thrive hasn’t even attempted to serve the groups most obviously in need of major mental-health help — the street homeless, and the jail population, nearly half of which has been diagnosed with mental illness.

Asked last week on “Good Day New York” about a deranged homeless man’s unprovoked assault on an 8-year-old autistic child in the subway, the mayor huffed about the “400 metrics” for Thrive accountability, then said, “You don’t get instant change with mental health.”

No one’s asking for instant change. But the city surely deserves to see some realistic effort to tackle the worst mental-health issues, rather than minor ones.

Yes, one part of Thrive, NYC Safe, targets individuals with untreated serious mental illness. But it relies on police, not mentalhealth professionals, as first responders.

And Thrive mainly focuses on lesser illnesses, on the theory that treating milder mental woes can prevent more serious ones. But it’s not remotely clear that that’s how mental illness works. And while depression and even anxiety can be heavy burdens, they rarely pose public-safety threats.

While the mayor and First Lady Chirlane McCray plug their “Cities Thrive” national initiative, which pushes the feds to make mental health and substance misuse a top priority, they’re AWOL when it comes to pushing Cuomo and the Legislature to add rather than cut hospital beds for the seriously mentally ill.

The City Council is set to grill McCray next Tuesday over Thrive, which she’s officially overseen from the start. It ought to be looking to shift these mental-health funds to efforts to help those most in need.