NYC unveils new option for homeless people discharged from psychiatric hospitals

New York City is launching a new program called Bridge to Home that aims to provide extended services and supervision to homeless New Yorkers being discharged from psychiatric stays at the city’s public hospitals, the Adams administration announced on Wednesday.

The program, which Mayor Eric Adams and other officials unveiled at Bellevue Hospital, will start with a single, 100-bed facility where residents can stay for up to a year while receiving ongoing care and help finding permanent housing. Officials said they are still looking for a location and operator for the facility, which is slated to become fully operational sometime between mid-2026 and mid-2027.

Adams said 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.” He added that it will also help people avoid returning to the emergency room, the streets, or jail shortly after being discharged. The facility's staff will include a range of professionals, including nurses, social workers and creative arts therapists.

The program is part of a broader $650 million initiative Adams unveiled last week to address homelessness and mental illness in the city. The dual focus on these issues comes amid a stream of high-profile, violent incidents that were allegedly perpetrated by or against people experiencing homelessness, mental illness, or both.

A woman who may have been homeless was set on fire on the subway last month. Additionally, police accused a man with schizophrenia, whose stepbrother said he was out of treatment, of fatally stabbing a 14-year-old who was on his way to school last week.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, the president and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals, said he’s been begging for a program like Bridge to Home for decades, so that people don’t lose the progress they made in the hospital immediately upon discharge. The city is budgeting $13 million a year for the program.

But, given Adams’ push to hospitalize more New Yorkers with mental illnesses, it’s unclear how far 100 beds will go toward addressing the need for this type of post-hospital care.

NYC Health and Hospitals is the city's largest provider of psychiatric services, and admitted about 11,000 individuals for psychiatric inpatient stays in 2023, according to spokesperson Stephanie Buhle. The health system has said that about 6% of its patients overall are homeless, although that figure may be higher among psychiatric patients.

According to City Hall, an average of about 130 people are brought to the hospital involuntarily for a psychiatric evaluation each week — an initiative Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have said they want to expand — although it’s unclear how many of those people are admitted, and how many have nowhere to go after discharge.

When asked about the Bridge to Home program’s capacity, Adams said it can always be expanded.

“If the hundred beds are not enough, we have to increase the number,” Adams said. “No one that's looking for that help should not have a bed that they can go to.”

He added that this is not the only option for people leaving the hospital system. The city has also launched three Extended Care Units at hospitals within the public system, which can house patients with severe mental illnesses for up to 120 days. A separate medical respite program similarly provides ongoing care for people who have nowhere to go after discharge and need additional time to recover from either mental or physical health issues.