The head of a local mental health clubhouse plans to deliver a letter to Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling for him to employ a voluntary state mental healthcare program as a solution to encourage unhoused individuals to voluntarily seek shelter during freezing temperatures.
“When people are in crisis, they need a place to go to, and that’s why I felt it was important to try to bring to his attention that the state has a model called the Supportive Crisis Stabilization Center,” said Ann-Marie Foster, president and CEO of Phoenix House New York/Long Island. “And we need to get this off the ground sooner rather than later, so that we can be there for people when they’re facing crises.”
She commended the mayor’s current efforts to reduce stigmatization against homelessness and believes Supportive Crisis Stabilization Centers will support his efforts toward more compassionate care after he ended his predecessor’s calls for encampment sweeps.
The centers, usually run by nonprofit partners, remain open around the clock and allow people to stay for up to a full day in a “living room-style” arrangement before determining where to place them. Clients can be referred to a support bed or local drop-in center. Or they can be returned to family or provided acute hospitalization.
Foster, whose organization runs a mental health clubhouse in Harlem, believes the neighborhood needs such a center and that Black and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately impacted. She says Phoenix House identified a four-story facility in the community.
“If you’re on 125th Street on any given day, you will see people that are in need [and] that are on the streets, and we need to bring them inside,” said Foster. “And I think that would be a great opportunity for us. There are also clubhouses in Harlem already that people can go during the day, five days out of the week [to] receive meals [and] services. And be able to be a part of a community instead of being outside in the cold and social isolation. So it’s part of…trying to build out the continuum of care in Harlem.
“You already have a state of the art acute hospital there. They’re serving as a warming center, and people are able to go there, but once they leave there during the day, where do they go? They should be able to go to a clubhouse. They should be able to go to a crisis stabilization center.”