The Nation : Psychiatric Patients Moved to Shelters

New York City has implemented a new policy to transfer psychiatric patients from city hospitals directly to homeless shelters to relieve overcrowding in psychiatric wards, officials said. “We are going to try it on a small scale,” said First Deputy Mayor Stanley Brezenoff. “If it doesn’t work, we won’t continue it.” Dr. Luis Marcos, vice president for mental hygiene at the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp., said work has started to provide 46 beds at two shelters in Manhattan and Brooklyn with mental health services. Critics of the new plan, however, said all it does is shift patients from one city agency to another without solving any problems. Experts have traced the city’s current homeless problem to a longstanding decision by the state to release tens of thousands of psychiatric patients without any medical supervision.