New York Shattering SilenceState chapter of NSSC

News & Updates

What's moving in New York

Policy decisions, budget actions, oversight findings, and reporting that bear on how New York treats severe mental illness. Every item links to its source so you can read the original rather than our summary of it.

Chapter newsletter · Out now

September / October 2026

The chapter's own round-up, prepared by Dave Meyers, Marianna Vertsman and Valerie Franchitti. Everything below is covered in it at greater length, with the sources attached.

  • NSSC wins a $229,337 Bristol Myers Squibb grant to launch the Crisis to Care Family Navigation Pilot — 50 families across five states, with navigators responding within 24 hours of referral.
  • The IMD CARE Act — NSSC submitted a letter of support for the newly introduced bill and is named among its endorsing organizations. It would open a Medicaid state plan amendment option for serious mental illness treatment.
  • The recording of “Rewriting the Future of Serious Mental Illness” — the New York Public Library's October 1 evening on gene therapy, AI-assisted monitoring, vision wearables and deep brain stimulation, now free to watch in full.
  • The state's Kendra's Law report, and the competing readings of what its evaluation of assisted outpatient treatment actually shows.
  • Commentary from Dave Meyers on how much “social determinants of mental health” really explain about serious mental illness, and what that means for suicide prevention funding.
  • Twelve linked articles, studies and opportunities, from GLP-1 prescribing in serious mental illness to an open state RFP for new Clubhouses.
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What we're reading

Swipe, scroll sideways, or use the arrow keys. 27 items, newest first — drawn from the chapter newsletter and our New York policy log.

The New York log

Albany, City Hall and the courts

The chapter's dated record of what has actually changed in New York, with the source for each entry.

June 5, 2026

Competency restoration reform passes both houses

S1004B, carried by Senator Samra Brouk, passed the Senate 46–14 on June 4 and cleared the Assembly as A5567B the following day. It would require examiners to assess whether restoration services are likely to work before a defendant found unfit to proceed is committed to a state facility, and would prioritize outpatient restoration over confinement. As of today the bill has not been delivered to or signed by the Governor, which makes it the single most actionable item on this page.

Source: New York State Senate bill S1004B. Status checked September 21, 2026.
May 2026

City orders review of psychiatric discharge after a Chelsea killing

Mayor Zohran Mamdani directed NYC Health + Hospitals to investigate the evaluation and release of a man who had been held at Bellevue's psychiatric emergency room for roughly an hour and discharged about five hours before a fatal assault on 76-year-old Ross Falzone on May 7. The mayor also asked the state Health Department to examine similar cases at the hospital for systemic gaps. NAMI-NYC responded by asking whether clinicians had consulted PSYCKES, the state's psychiatric history database, before discharging him, and called for discharge decisions made with adequate time and clinical rigor.

Sources: NYC Mayor's Office; amNewYork; NAMI-NYC. The criminal case has not been tried.
May 7, 2026

Senate votes 60–1 to end fail-first protocols for serious mental illness

S4867A, carried by Senator Patricia Fahy, passed the Senate and moved to the Assembly Insurance Committee as A7522. It would bar insurers from applying fail-first or step therapy protocols, or prior authorization, to prescription drugs treating serious mental health conditions across nine diagnostic categories — a far broader list than the bill's original version.

Source: New York State Senate bill S4867A.
March 12, 2026

Nicole's Law amended and recommitted in both chambers

A10490A, carried by Assemblymember Matt Slater with Senate companion S5296A from Senator Luis Sepúlveda, was amended and returned to the Assembly Mental Health Committee; the Senate version was amended and recommitted on February 27. The bill is named for Nicole Ettere, a 37-year-old medical professional who died in 2017 after a series of hospitalizations. The bill would add a new section 9.61 to the Mental Hygiene Law setting out what a hospital must do when it admits and then discharges a patient who arrived with a self-inflicted, life-threatening injury: examine the medical history, contact family, weigh prior incidents before ending an inpatient stay, and arrange follow-up care including assisted outpatient treatment.

Source: New York State Assembly bill A10490A.
January 28, 2026

$43 million announced for psychiatric emergency and inpatient capacity

Governor Hochul announced $23 million for comprehensive psychiatric emergency programs and $20 million in capital funding to expand inpatient beds, including up to $7 million for two facilities creating units for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The announcement noted that state-funded CPEPs recorded more than 110,000 visits between October 2024 and September 2025, with nearly 14,800 admissions to extended observation beds.

Source: Office of the Governor.
November 19, 2025

Report finds 60% of the Rikers population needs mental health treatment

A joint report from the Data Collaborative for Justice and the Katal Center documented that three in five people held at Rikers Island need mental health treatment and are jailed longer than those who do not, and set out fifteen recommendations across diversion, competency proceedings, mental health courts, jail-to-community linkage, and hospital-based secure therapeutic beds in place of Rikers.

Source: Katal Center.
August 7, 2025

The Mental Hygiene Law amendments take effect

The statutory changes enacted with the FY 2026 budget became operative. Emergency admissions under section 9.39 now reach a person at substantial risk of physical harm from an inability or refusal to provide for essential needs; psychiatric nurse practitioners may perform examinations and request transport; hospitals must notify community providers, Mental Hygiene Legal Service, and up to three designated people; and a new section 9.64 requires hospital directors to identify and notify the community providers already carrying a patient on their caseload.

Source: Abrams Fensterman summary of the 2025 amendments.
2025

Attorney General secures reforms at three Hudson Valley hospitals

An investigation into Westchester Medical Center, MidHudson Regional Hospital, and HealthAlliance Hospital found patients with active suicidal ideation discharged without stabilization, agitated children medicated without adequate de-escalation, and one patient under a psychiatrist's constant-monitoring order who left the hospital unsupervised and died shortly afterward. The settlement requires restored inpatient beds, enhanced suicide risk screening, individualized discharge plans, and compliance reporting to the Attorney General every six months.

Source: Office of the New York Attorney General.
May 9, 2025

FY 2026 budget rewrites the commitment standard and Kendra's Law

The enacted budget widened the "likelihood to result in serious harm" definition to include a person unable to meet essential needs, aligning New York with 43 other states; permitted a new assisted outpatient treatment petition within six months of an order's expiration; and appropriated $16.5 million for county AOT implementation, $2 million for state oversight of it, $160 million for 100 new forensic inpatient beds in New York City, and $25 million for subway connection centers.

Source: New York State Division of the Budget.

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