PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Grace Nichols, Representative from New York Act Up
4:13:40
·
4 min
Grace Nichols, representing New York Act Up, testified about the need for peer-led mental health crisis response in New York City. She shared her personal experience with police intervention during a mental health crisis and advocated for a non-police approach to mental health emergencies.
- Nichols emphasized the importance of peer support and the dangers of police involvement in mental health crises, particularly for marginalized communities.
- She called for full funding of a 24/7 peer-led, peer-centered model for crisis response.
- Nichols stressed the intersectionality of mental health crises with physical health, LGBTQ+ issues, racism, and classism.
Grace Nichols
4:13:40
My name is Grace Nichols.
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In New York's my hometown.
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I went to high school to here at Stuyvesant.
4:13:47
And I come to you today, drove in from Maine.
4:13:51
I after getting my law degree, I now work for the Maine Human Rights Commission.
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And 25 years ago, despite the fact I was a science teacher and a mother and pacifist, after a misunderstanding with a social worker, the police came for me and dragged me off to a mental hospital.
4:14:10
Where I both witnessed and experienced human rights violations that I did not think were legal in the United States.
4:14:17
And when people with disabilities are subject to the types of police brutality that is a national crisis in public health, It's not just New York.
4:14:28
But when I heard that New York was having this degree of difficulty in respecting human rights, I had to come down and testify today.
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Now, I represent a coalition named New York Act Up.
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We are a historic group that has provided peer support for people living with HIV and their allies for over 47 years.
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We're famous in this city for confronting the city when our blood was on your hands.
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And we stand in solidarity with our sisters and our brothers in the mental health rights and recovery movement.
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I have a statement here that we consent to.
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And act up members live in every borough.
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We have over a 1000 members.
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Act up New York supports funding.
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It appears not police, mental health crisis response in New York City.
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Stop NYPD violence, and we know that all people with disabilities are in danger when the status quo continues.
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We rely on you, our city council, to protect our safety and civil liberties.
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In the last 8 years alone, New York City police have murdered 20 New Yorkers in their botched attempts to help them during a mental health crisis.
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These killings, in which the fear of people with mental health diagnoses intersects with racial profiling, are unacceptable and preventable.
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We are calling on you to act as a voice of the people most in need of protection.
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ActUp has served the HIV positive community since 1987 using our own peer support and direct action model defending a vulnerable population against stigma, governmental neglect, big pharma profiteering, and lack of treatment access.
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We have fought against civil rights violations of all kinds.
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We know that any New Yorker can experience crisis and that people living with HIV are impacted by your choice in how to address a crisis.
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We also know that black and brown New Yorkers as well as impoverished New Yorkers are most at risk for a violent police response.
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People with HIV are overrepresented in each of these groups.
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We stand with chronic crisis intervention today and their peers not police model We know that the presence of trained peers as first responders to New Yorkers and crisis saved lives, saved dollars, and also provides jobs to caring trained people with lived experience of mental health crisis.
Linda Lee
4:16:55
Sorry, Grace.
4:16:56
One second.
4:16:57
Just because I have to give as much equal
Clarisa Alayeto
4:16:59
to Yeah.
Linda Lee
4:16:59
Yeah.
4:17:00
Yeah.
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As possible.
4:17:00
Okay.
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If you could sum up in in 1 or 2 sentences
Grace Nichols
4:17:03
I will.
Linda Lee
4:17:04
Hopefully, you have the rest of that in your written statement that you're submitting.
Grace Nichols
4:17:07
So we re we recommend full funding 24247 for a peer led, peer centered model.
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And we also ask given that the mental health crisis is intersectional with physical health, intersection with the LGBT community, intersection with racism and classism that you incorporate physical health appear support into your thinking on this.
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Act up, fight back, fight stigma.
4:17:40
Thank you.
4:17:41
Thank you.
4:17:43
Any questions?
