On Wednesday morning he announced a $650 million investment to help people with mental illness who have no place to live.
Part of the plan will add 900 Safe Haven shelter beds at sites with staff that can help people transition from temporary to permanent housing and 100 beds are also being added for runaways and young adults to get specialized help.
The city also unveiled a first-of-its-kind Bridge-to-Home program.
"Our goal is to give them the trust they need to come inside," Adams said. "So the new facility will provide a safe space for New Yorkers with mental illness to live, to heal and be cared for so they get the life-changing help they need."
Meanwhile, NYPD officers are now being assigned to every subway train rolling through the city in the overnight hours.
Adams praised the stepped-up deployments, while admitting that's only part of the answer. The city needs a long-term strategy for its mental health 'crisis' with unstable people in the transit system and in the streets.
"For far too long we were walking past them, acting like they don't exist, allowing them to sleep on the side of the highways and allowing them to sleep in our subway stations, in our streets," Adams said. "And we just act like everything was fine. I refuse to do that."
The severely mentally ill are often swept off the streets and taken to a psychiatric emergency room, briefly hospitalized, and then released.
But the groundbreaking $650 million investment will include a facility dedicated to stabilizing those with severe mental illness.
"Part of what promotes psychosis is being on a subway car without any other support. Part of what promotes recovery are other people reorienting you, talking to you, engaging with you, and that's what we're going to have at this facility. And when people are ready, then we will be able to move them to permanent housing," said NYC Health and Hospitals CEO Mitch Kat.
Andrew Walker is an outreach worker who works underground.
"I believe it's going to make the subways safer," Walker said. "I'm in the subways... I've seen the change. I've seen the difference. I have faith in the new program that they have, I believe it is going to work."
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