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Alliance Alert: Yesterday morning, the Alliance for Rights and Recovery held a press conference at the Capitol alongside family advocates, former law enforcement officers, housing providers, and representatives from mental health and legal rights organizations to call for expanded voluntary services and the rejection of any expansion of involuntary commitment in the final state budget.

Advocates expressed deep concern with Governor Hochul’s proposal to expand the use of involuntary commitment, particularly as thousands of ����������ers remain on long waitlists for services they are actively seeking—such as supportive housing and case management. As we emphasized yesterday, it is unacceptable to prioritize forced treatment when the system cannot even meet the current demand for voluntary care.

Speakers also renewed calls for the state to finally utilize the mental health incident review panels, established in law over a decade ago, to publicly investigate violent incidents involving individuals with mental illness. These panels would identify gaps in the system and provide clear recommendations to improve services and prevent future tragedies—yet, not one has been convened since the law passed in 2013.

Additionally, advocates called for:

• Full implementation of Daniel’s Law to replace police responses to mental health crises with peer- and health-led teams.
• Immediate action to unlock and fund the 2,000–4,000 vacant supportive housing beds in NYC and additional units statewide.
• A 7.8% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for community-based providers to address staffing shortages and preserve service quality.

As the Capitol Confidential and Politico articles note, a final state budget deal is expected imminently. But even in these final hours, key debates continue around Governor Hochul’s proposal to expand involuntary commitment. Lawmakers, mental health professionals, and advocates alike have warned that the proposal offers little in the way of real impact—and may distract from the broader systemic issues at hand.

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon and Senator Gustavo Rivera have rightly noted that these proposals won’t meaningfully address the homelessness or mental health crisis and that thousands of supportive housing beds sit empty while thousands of ����������ers remain unhoused and without services. In the absence of investments in post-discharge planning and long-term care, even those who are hospitalized under involuntary standards will be returned to the same broken system.

Now is not the time for policies that fail to address root causes. ���������� must build the capacity of its mental health system, invest in the workforce, and ensure accountability through tools like incident review panels.

The Alliance and its partners will continue to fight for what works: voluntary, person-centered services, accountability, and real access—not coercion. We urge the Governor and Legislature to build a mental health system that meets people’s needs, respects their rights, and delivers long-overdue change.

We will keep pushing until the final budget reflects that commitment.

Budget Deal Nears Finish Line
By Jason Beeferman | Politico | April 23, 2025

State lawmakers met this afternoon to hammer out the final details of the proposed $252 billion budget.

And Gov. Kathy Hochul is getting some — but not all — of .

Talks are winding down around her push to lower the standard for involuntary commitment of the mentally ill to hospitals, but lawmakers are signaling they won’t relent on unresolved issues like funding for patients’ post-discharge plans.

And some fellow Democratic lawmakers think the thrust of Hochul’s proposal is more bluster than effective policy.

“What the governor originally proposed, it doesn’t necessarily augment the ability of people to be removed from public locations,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who chairs his chamber’s health committee, told Playbook. “She claims that’s what it does, but that’s not what it does.”

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, who chairs the Assembly’s mental health committee, said a proposal to create review panels that probe violent incidents involving mentally ill ����������ers is part of ongoing budget talks. She also said Hochul is opposing a push from both chambers of the state Legislature to increase pay for mental health workers.

Simon agreed with Rivera that Hochul’s push to expand involuntary commitment to individuals who can’t provide for their “essential needs, such as food, clothing, medical care, safety, or shelter” will have little impact on the broader issue of homelessness and mental illness.

“There aren’t very many people who are that emotionally disturbed, there just aren’t,” she said. “The issue that we have is much bigger than that.”

She noted  who are both chronically homeless and mentally ill reside in ���������� City, even though  sit empty.

Nicolette Simmonds, a spokesperson for the governor, responded to the lawmakers.

“Governor Hochul isn’t going to sugarcoat the problem or minimize it: it’s undeniable that there are individuals struggling with mental illness who are living on the streets and subways,” she said. “These are our neighbors who deserve compassionate care, not ideological posturing or sloganeerings.”

She said the governor “has made unprecedented investments to transform the continuum of mental health care.”

Hochul’s other budget priorities, including a cell phone ban in schools and a change to criminal discovery law, appear to be done deals, giving the governor a pair of policy wins ahead of her reelection next year.

Her initial roar to restrict mask use to boost public safety has turned into a whimper.

In June, the governor  on masks, before falling silent on it for the remainder of the year. In the late stages of the budget process, she got behind a measure that would make it a criminal violation to wear a mask with the intent to menace or threaten violence against someone. But that fell flat with lawmakers.

Now, that proposal have been minimized to a new criminal penalty that can be added on to the sentence of someone already convicted of a crime, our colleague  Tuesday. And Hochul is already entertaining the idea that the issue could be dealt with after the budget, which is already more than three weeks late.

Hochul spent the day in her office in the Capitol working on the budget, interspersed with an economic development meeting this morning.

Murmurs  last week that she is pushing a measure in the budget that would allow some inmates convicted of violent crimes to be let out early to cut costs is also off the table. That idea would’ve allowed 1,300 inmates to immediately be released early, according to Hochul’s office.

“Governor Hochul will not allow anyone who demonstrates a public safety threat to be released early from prison,” a different Hochul spokesperson, Matt Janiszewski, told Playbook. “A proposal was discussed that would have granted near term merit time release to approximately 3% of the prison population — only if they have excellent disciplinary records and a plan to live a crime-free life outside [the state’s department of corrections] facilities. Under no circumstances will this Administration grant any special privileges to individuals convicted of murder, rape or other sex offenses.”

Why Involuntary Commitment is more Complicated than Hochul’s Proposal
By Dan Clark | Capitol Confidential | April 23, 2025

Incident review panels, discharge plans and Daniel’s Law are all wrapped up in the issue.

A handshake budget deal could be reached by Friday

The Capitol was quiet Wednesday after some lawmakers departed to their districts Tuesday while others stuck around to enjoy our beautiful capital city.

Democrats in both chambers had not conferenced as of early Wednesday afternoon. They’re on call if they’re needed to convene but will otherwise meet to review whatever budget progress has been made tonight or tomorrow.

That could be the conference in which members are told a budget deal is imminent. That’s where talks are headed if they don’t blow up.

That would mean the announcement of a budget deal Friday or Monday, with voting to start on Monday or Tuesday. Either way, the budget bills have to be printed so there’s no chance at this point of a surprise budget vote this week.

That’s the timeline we’re working with at the moment unless something changes.

But one issue that was still open to some degree as of Wednesday afternoon was Hochul’s proposal to change the state’s standards for the involuntary commitment of people with a mental illness.

You might be familiar with this question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?

But here’s a new question: if a problem prompts the crafting of a new law but that law is never used, does that mean the problem has ceased to exist?

The answer to that question, at least in the law I’m about to outline for you, is no.

Why hasn’t ���������� used this 2013 mental health law?

This sent me down a rabbit hole today that I’m now going to drag you into. Sorry.

We’re turning back the clock today to the 2013 state budget, an era in which Republicans held the majority in the state Senate and Andrew M. Cuomo was in his first term as governor.

A short section of the budget authorized the creation of mental health incident review panels — a combination of state and local officials tasked with reviewing an incident in which someone with a mental illness is seriously injured or causes a serious injury.

Those panels are then supposed to identify “problems or gaps in mental health delivery systems” and “make recommendations for corrective action to improve” services and coordination.

The Office of Mental Health is  after an incident or at the request of a local government agency.

But in the 12 years since that’s been allowed, the state has not convened a single incident review panel. It literally has not happened one time — not in the following eight years that Cuomo was governor nor in the four years since.

You might be wondering why that is. I was too and, it turns out, Office of Mental Health Commissioner Dr. Anne Marie T. Sullivan answered that question for us at a budget hearing in February.

“We’ve never had a formal incident review panel as described in the legislation,” she said. “However, every time there’s an incident there is a tremendous amount of review that goes on both within the Office of Mental Health and any other agencies involved.”

Senate Mental Health Chair Samra Brouk followed up on that answer by asking Sullivan why the state hasn’t instead done any formal, public reviews like the law allows.

“I think you can always do a good review and we do do good reviews and we learn all the time from what we review,” Sullivan said. “I think incident review panels we have not used yet, it’s something to look into.”

Internal reviews of incidents have led to the creation of INSET, community-based, peer-led teams that offer help to people with mental health challenges , and CTI, where teams are tasked with coordinating services for someone, Sullivan said.

When the state creates something new, it’s usually in response to something that happened. That was unclear here.

There was no mention of the incident review panels in statements or stories about the 2013 budget deal. The language was pulled  by Sen. Kevin Parker but it was originally proposed by Sen. Thomas Morahan in 2008.

That means it’s almost two decades before this idea was proposed and they haven’t even tried it yet as an option to help improve the state’s mental health system.

But they’re now gaining new attention as Hochul and the Legislature iron out the final details of the state budget.

What’s part of talks on involuntary commitment

There is a consensus at this point that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to expand the state’s laws on involuntary commitment will be included in a final budget deal in some form.

Those laws set the standard that medical professionals use to determine if someone with a mental illness should be involuntarily committed to a hospital for treatment. That’s already allowed.

The standard right now allows someone to be committed if they’re determined to pose a risk to themselves or others. That can only be determined by a physician; the police or people who brought that person in can’t make that decision.

Hochul wants to expand that to allow involuntary commitment if someone, due to their mental illness, can’t meet their essential needs, including food, clothing, medical care, safety or shelter.

It’s important to note that this came about as a response to violent incidents in ���������� City in which the perpetrator was believed to have a mental illness. The idea of Hochul’s proposal would be to get those folks into treatment before that happens.

But lawmakers have argued that the proposal wouldn’t get to the heart of the issue, which is really about the continuum of mental health care in ����������.

“I think there’s a perception that this involuntary aspect is more of a solution than it is and, in fact, it’s a very small part of the solution if it’s a solution at all,” Assembly Mental Health Chair Jo Anne Simon told me Wednesday. “My sense is that it’s been a tough battle with the executive.”

Lawmakers want whatever deal is struck to create a holistic approach to mental health treatment for those individuals, not just a short hospital stay that leaves them back on the streets.

That includes discussion on a whole host of issues, including the need for comprehensive treatment plans for patients upon discharge and how they can be reached before it gets to the point of involuntary commitment.

It also includes a fresh look at the use of incident review panels, Simon said.

“There is some significant conversation around that because it is currently the law — it was passed before I got here — and never been used, and we think there’s something fundamentally wrong with that,” Simon said.

Hochul and the Legislature might have had a better idea by now on how to prevent future violent incidents that involve someone with a mental illness if that law had been used by now, Simon said.

The topic is timely; ���������� City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to convene such a panel in response to the death of a Queens resident shot by police.

The man had a history of mental health issues and had been involuntarily committed twice before the incident, Simon said.

“If involuntary hospitalization was the answer, we answered it twice for him and it didn’t work,” Simon said. “So he needed something else.”

There’s also a workforce issue. Humans services organizations want a 7.8% funding boost in state funding this year. Without it, they’ve said recruiting and retaining workers to provide the services needed will be a challenge.

Then there’s Daniel’s Law, which you can read about in the next section.

On The Bill: An involuntary commitment add-on — Daniel’s Law
Sponsor(s):��Sen. Samra Brouk��and Assemblyman Harry Bronson

History: First introduced in 2022; pilot program approved in 2024

Current status: Part of state budget talks; Senate Finance Committee, Assembly Mental Health Committee

Purpose: This would form a statewide Emergency and Crisis Response Council to review plans submitted by local governments on how an emergency response to someone experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis should be handled.

That would involve teams run by non-governmental organizations and comprised of peers, meaning people with a lived experience with mental health or substance use challenges, and emergency medical technicians independent of the municipality.

Those plans would have to be designed, in part, to decrease contact between police officers and people in crisis.

More Context: This bill is named for Daniel Prude, who  while experiencing a mental health and substance use crisis. His death was ruled a homicide.

Last year’s state budget created the Daniel’s Law Task Force, which issued a report late last year with recommendations on what would help improve ways to respond to emergencies involving mental health and substance use.

They had two main recommendations. The first was for the Legislature to create a defined response protocol that could be followed statewide.

The second called for a Behavioral Health Crisis Technical Assistance Center, which would be a statewide entity that would essentially help local governments develop plans and protocols, provide training and improve coordination.

That second recommendation was part of state budget talks as of two weeks ago around discussions on involuntary commitment.