Establishes a task force to study aging in place in mental health housing

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic8
• Republican4

This bill has cosponsors from more than one party.

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Samra Brouk says this is needed

More than 40,000 New Yorkers with severe mental illness reside in commu- nity-based mental health housing. The mental health housing models established 40 years ago no longer represent all the needs of the current population. When created by New York State, their focus was to assist residents in transitioning from a model that is congregate based with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week staff and support, to a model that is a single apartment with support services as needed. Today's residents living in mental health housing are different from those who lived in mental health housing when it was first created. Today's residents take 12-15 medications daily, as opposed to one or two; and many have multi- ple co-occurring medical conditions in addition to mental illness and substance use disorder; and many are living longer, which means they need more medical care. More than forty percent of mental health hous- ing residents are age 55 and over, with nearly a third of those age 65 and over. Combined, these residents are treated for 166 different medical conditions, with the most prevalent being diabetes, hyperten- sion, COPD, dementia, cancer, and mobility issues. More than three-quar- ters of the housing is not equipped with the resources to provide care for the medical needs of the residents. Moreover, most nursing homes will not take residents who have severe mental illness, nor are such facilities able to serve their mental health needs. With only 180 beds designated as geriatric congregate residences, there is only a fraction of the beds needed to serve this population. Further, despite the geria- tric designation, currently there are no additional resources for the care of these fragile, aging residents in the mental health housing system. Therefore, with demographic changes within the mental health housing community, this legislation seeks to be responsive to meeting the increasingly complex health and mental health care needs of such residents.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.