To the Editor:
“Behind Acts of Violence, Years of Errors” (entrance web page, Nov. 21) successfully underscores the many years of neglect, underfunding and mismanagement which have made New York’s psychological well being system such a powerful failure for thus many individuals in our metropolis. Nevertheless it additionally perpetuates harmful stereotypes about people who find themselves homeless and makes assumptions concerning the worth of “psychological well being shelters” that don’t comport with actuality.
The breakdowns within the social security web for individuals dwelling with psychological sickness are certainly an pressing drawback, however these breakdowns have an effect on all individuals dwelling with psychological sickness, not simply these with out houses. By focusing solely on homeless people — and on what’s statistically a small variety of violent actions by a few of these people — you might be feeding into the misperception of homeless New Yorkers as deranged and harmful.
In actuality, as you word, people who’re homeless are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of crimes.
Whereas the authorized proper to shelter is crucial to making sure that 1000’s extra individuals are not relegated to sleeping on our streets or within the transit system, shelters — together with psychological well being shelters — are on no account acceptable settings for people with extreme psychological sickness. In actual fact, our shoppers in these shelters usually report that these environments exacerbate their signs, moderately than help their wants.
Supportive housing has proved to be the best approach of stabilizing homeless people with psychological sickness and different disabilities.
Dave Giffen
New York
The author is government director of the Coalition for the Homeless.
To the Editor:
As a New York Metropolis behavioral well being social employee for the previous 16 years, a part of that point spent because the director of a Manhattan homeless shelter, I can not thanks sufficient for this text. My expertise attempting to get enough psychological well being help for shelter shoppers was nothing in need of tragic.
Hostile first responders from the New York Police Division and Emergency Medical Companies and flippant emergency room medical doctors usually painted my colleagues and me as idealistic, naïve and unqualified bleeding hearts who failed to grasp why they might not intervene in what one emergency room doctor described as a “social drawback,” versus a organic one.
There’ll all the time be a scarcity of assets in New York Metropolis, however a scarcity of accountability — for racial, cultural and socioeconomic biases — is likely to be the larger drawback right here.
Melissa Flanagan
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
Whereas our system for serving to individuals with essentially the most vital challenges is just not excellent, and we as a metropolis have a methods to go to make good on the promise of deinstitutionalization by delivering a sturdy continuum of psychological well being companies, there are lots of brilliant spots and rising proof that what we’re doing is working.
This text suggests points with cell remedy packages, for instance, however they actually have very excessive success charges in supporting individuals who haven’t been helped by every other packages, as is described in a Could 7 New York Instances article, “Somebody in Their Nook.”
Moreover, each metropolis and state governments, and nonprofit suppliers, are creating new packages to fill gaps within the continuum of care. On the Institute for Neighborhood Residing, we simply launched a step-down program for people in cell packages who’re prepared for much less intensive remedy, serving to clear the backlog of individuals ready for a cell remedy slot.
Earlier this yr we launched one other new program for people who find themselves unhoused and cycle out and in of hospitals. To date, we’ve got positioned 93 p.c of them in everlasting housing in underneath 100 days. I imagine that a lot of what we’re doing is successfully assembly the wants of people with essentially the most critical psychological well being challenges.
We should always work towards a system the place we don’t fail a single individual, however, in contrast to what this text suggests, failure is much from the rule.
Jody Rudin
New York
The author is president and C.E.O. of the Institute for Neighborhood Residing.
An Immoral Oct. 7 ‘However’
To the Editor:
Thanks to Thomas L. Friedman for his considerate sequence of columns concerning the Palestinian-Israeli battle. His Nov. 26 column, “There Are Extra Than Two Sides to This Battle,” reveals us complexities but in addition features a easy, pure metric for discussing the Hamas assault on Oct. 7.
It’s a remark from Mansour Abbas, a Muslim and member of Israel’s parliament: “Nobody can settle for what occurred on that day. And we can not condemn it and say ‘however’ — that phrase ‘however’ has develop into immoral.”
Equivocating liberals ought to take word. It is a profound assertion, from somebody who has a proper to make it.
Candace Singer
Port Washington, N.Y.
Biden and the Israel-Gaza Battle
To the Editor:
I’m upset after I hear well-meaning associates blaming Joe Biden for the horrors of the Israel-Hamas warfare as if he’s Lyndon Johnson bombing Vietnam or George W. Bush bombing Iraq, moderately than blaming the person who’s bombing Gaza or the terrorists who attacked that man’s weak nation or just feeling unhappy for the entire world.
That is for my Democratic associates:
1. Joe Biden is working for peace utilizing no matter affect he has over the events concerned and deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
2. True diplomacy is sophisticated. I admit I do know nothing concerning the complexities, however not less than I do know what I don’t know. Do you?
3. If the Democratic Get together stays cut up over this warfare, we’ll wind up with a president who imprisons his enemies — presumably together with you and me — and makes our nation right into a warfare zone preventing “the enemy inside.” Please don’t decrease: The hazard is actual.
Cindy Glovinsky
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Father and Son Making an attempt to Mend a Divide Over Jan. 6
Mr. Mock presents as a caring, attentive, hardworking household man led amiss by Donald Trump’s shameless and amoral self-portrayal as a sufferer.
Mr. Mock is anxious concerning the impact of his ideas and actions on his son, A.J. Mock. He made a mistake however he was maliciously misled. He neither warrants nor wants imprisonment.
He must be at house in discussions along with his son and neighbors, engaged in straight speak, exchanging ideas and emotions about how and why we arrived at the moment and place. We have to hear each other and be given time to ask questions after which time to ponder solutions earlier than even starting to contemplate motion. Hold him free!
Paul Eric Rudder
New York
The author is a lawyer.
Planet Earth Will Survive Us
To the Editor:
Re “We Can’t Afford to Hold Making Low cost Issues,” by Yvon Chouinard (Opinion visitor essay, Nov. 24):
A quick statement about a superb commentary: It’s not our planet that’s in danger. It’s us. Our species. Sure, it’s true that if we persist in our behaviors, we’ll desecrate it, however planet Earth has demonstrated repeatedly that it has the capacities required to outlast the likes of us.
David Hill
Mill Valley, Calif.
