New York Settled, Promising New Life for Mentally Ill People
In a big win for New York housing law and disability advocates, New York settled a 2006 case this week that accused it of “violating the spirit of its own longstanding rules for housing mentally ill people.” The settlement came on the heels of the judge setting a trial date for early October.
Here’s the low-down (as I have gathered from the New York Times article): Back in 2002, NYT did a series of exposé articles revealing the repulsive nursing home conditions that mentally ill people were living in and as a result, this case was filed. Not surprisingly, New York has a “longstanding legal principle . . . [that] the mentally ill cannot be confined unless they are considered a threat to themselves or others, and should be housed in the leased restrictive setting appropriate for their needs.”
The meat of the settlement is in the three-year deadline to move qualifying patients out of nursing homes and into the community. However, the state has also promised to provide for reforming the assessment process that is used to determine whether patients can live in the community and develop 200 new supported housing units.
Read the whole story here.
Share your public-interest wins with us below & let us know what you think of NY’s settlement.
