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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Edwin Santana, Community Organizer from Freedom Agenda
5:45:14
·
147 sec
Edwin Santana, representing Freedom Agenda, testified about the urgent need for improved mental health resources and alternatives to incarceration in New York City. He criticized the mayor's approach to mental health investment and highlighted the high prevalence of mental health issues among those incarcerated at Rikers Island.
- Santana called for an additional $70.6 million in funding for various mental health and housing initiatives, including supported housing, mobile treatment teams, and crisis respite centers.
- He emphasized that these programs are more cost-effective and beneficial than incarceration, which costs about $500,000 per person annually at Rikers.
- Santana urged the city council to follow through on their preliminary budget response and fulfill the obligation to close Rikers Island.
Edwin Santana
5:45:14
Good afternoon chairs and committee members.
5:45:15
My name is Edwin Santana and I'm testifying on behalf of Freedom Agenda as a community organizer, a member of the campaign to close Rikers, and a survivor of Rikers Island.
5:45:25
There's no doubt that the mayor's lip service towards investing in mental health care is a joke, but the way the city treats individuals with serious mental health issues and needs in our community is no laughing matter.
5:45:36
Freedom agenda members are people who have been incarcerated at Rikers or loved ones who, have suffered there.
5:45:43
In many cases, a lack of quality accessible mental health treatment led to the incarceration.
5:45:48
To make things worse, when they return home, they lack, they lack the proper resources to assist them in their healing and coping.
5:45:55
Right now, fifty percent of people at Rikers have mental health issues and more than twenty percent are diagnosed with a serious mental health issue.
5:46:02
Our city has so many proven solutions for addressing mental health needs like intensive mobile treatment teams, justice involved supported housing, crisis respite centers, and quality, residential treatment centers.
5:46:15
Every one of them operates at a fraction of the of the half a million dollars it costs per year to keep one person at Rikers, but every one of these programs also has long waiting lists.
5:46:25
While people wait for their need to help that they need, our city seems to have no problem putting resources toward arresting and incarcerating them.
5:46:34
That is shameful and foolish.
5:46:35
It's time to use our precious resources to fund the things that work.
5:46:39
We need to allocate at least an additional seven seventy point six million this year to meet housing and mental health needs and to come, fill fulfill commitments in the closed Rikers plan.
5:46:50
Specifically, we need 26,600,000.0 in annual funding for justice involved supported housing to open three eighty new, units and allow for an enhanced model that can support people with the highest level of need.
5:47:02
20 24,700,000.0 more to create more intensive mobile treatment teams, seven million more to create more forensic assertive community treatment teams, and 6,000,000 more to open four new crisis risk centers, six point three million more to open two fifty new, units of residential treatment for people with mental health needs and substance addiction.
5:47:22
We're grateful to the city council for including all of these priorities in your preliminary budget response.
5:47:28
To follow through on the legal and moral obligation to close Rikers, you must secure a budget that will improve community health and safety and reduce our city's over reliance on incarceration.
5:47:39
Closed Rikers.
5:47:40
Thank you.