New transitional housing program to help homeless New Yorkers with severe mental illness
The program will aim to reduce emergency room visits, in-patient hospitalizations, the reliance on shelters and lower interactions with police.
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City officials announced a major milestone in their efforts to address the mental health crisis.
The Bridge to Home Facility will provide transitional housing with onsite clinical services to 46 people at a time with severe mental illness.
Roughly half of the city's 78,000 behavioral health patients experience homelessness, according to city officials, meaning after they are discharged from the hospital, they have no place to go.
This facility, located in Midtown West near NYC Health + Hospitals Bellevue, will provide them with 24/7 care, that includes medication management, substance use disorder treatment, individual and group therapy, recreational activities among other services.
The goal is to provide those in crisis with a stable and safe environment to get them on their feet and help them apply for permanent housing.
"This is going to break that cycle of shelter, then back to the ER, another admission, repeating the same previous work all of which was lost, we want to break that cycle and get definitive treatment," said Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals.
The program will aim to reduce emergency room visits, in-patient hospitalizations, the reliance on shelters and lower interactions with police. The facility was unveiled in Mayor Eric Adams' 2025 State of the City address to homelessness and support New Yorkers experiencing serious mental illness.
"We are going to give New Yorkers with serious mental illness the chance that they deserve," said Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president for Ambulatory Care and Population Health at NYC Health + Hospitals.
Behavioral Health clinicians from all NYC Health + Hospital locations across the city will be able to refer patients to the program.
A second facility, with the capacity to house 50 individuals, is planned to open in fall of 2026. The location has not yet been determined.
