Saturday, November 18, 2017

What goes on near Creedmoor


From Crains:

Fully 70% of Creedmoor patients are now managed by the various nonprofit organizations operating on the Creedmoor grounds. These nonprofits have been absent from each of the three Creedmoor meetings, although their presence had been requested. They shield themselves from accountability, and tout HIPAA patient confidentiality laws to keep neighboring communities in the dark.

Surprisingly, there is no requirement that wandering patients take their daily medications and there is no behavioral code of conduct protocol conveyed to them. The general lack of accountability by the nonprofits is stunning. Their managers enter the facility gates in the morning and leave at night, rarely stepping foot outside of Creedmoor to see what their patients have wrought on nearby communities.

The aggressive panhandling is rampant. Unsuspecting pedestrians are accosted daily and disheveled individuals often follow them into a Dunkin’ Donuts or wait outside an ATM to demand money. Recently, a woman sitting at McDonald’s in Queens Village was assaulted by a Creedmoor resident. A middle-aged worker in Creedmoor was sucker-punched by a patient as she bent down to pick up a food tray. She is now recuperating with 3 steel rods in her neck.

Public defecation, substance abuse and other quality-of-life infractions are now commonplace in residential communities around Creedmoor. Unfortunately, the police are discouraged from enforcing certain laws now that Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council have decriminalized some low-level infractions. Creedmoor officials acknowledge that well-meaning individuals should neither give money nor endure menacing shakedowns by patients who live rent-free, receive three meals per day including snacks, plus a weekly monetary stipend paid in part by the very same individuals that are being accosted daily.

Civic leaders who sought to identify why these problems have dramatically worsened over the past year were repeatedly told by Creedmoor administrators that nothing has changed. But recently, writer and former City Council candidate Dennis Saffran, who investigated Creedmoor for another story, revealed some interesting facts. It turns out that much has changed. Governor Andrew Cuomo prioritized deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill and moving them out of wards and into so-called “transitional housing.” To accomplish this, OMH simply rebranded its wards as “transitional housing” and redesignated inpatients as “outpatients” although their living arrangements never changed.

11 comments:

JQ LLC said...

"It turns out that much has changed. Governor Andrew Cuomo prioritized deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill and moving them out of wards and into so-called “transitional housing.” To accomplish this, OMH simply rebranded its wards as “transitional housing” and redesignated inpatients as “outpatients” although their living arrangements never changed."

Fascinating. So this is just another extension of the idiotic, costly and now society damaging feud between the two neoliberal assholes elected and tasked to run the state and city with efficiency and accountability.

Mario's son is using and redefining de Faustio's crazy housing policy to wreck the town of Glen Oaks and nearby areas. And since it's all the way east of Queens and just another mundane bland neighborhood not of interest for the hipshit demo makes it easy to overlook.

Anonymous said...

The very same thing happens in Rockaway with all the assisted living places for the mentally ill. Go to Beach 116th Street and you will be accosted by numerous beggars. It's horrible. The Park Inn on the boardwalk is a house of horrors.

Anonymous said...

Thank the dope Governor. Stop letting these people out when they belonged inpatient.

Anonymous said...

There is an impatient/outpatient/detox in Fresh Meadows called "cornerstone". Heroin junkies in the parking lot all night waiting for the place to open. Needles everywhere. I feel bad for alcoholics, but not the addicts.

Anonymous said...

Good work, Dennis. Unfortunately, this deinstituitonalization has been tried before and was popularized in the mid 1960s by some well-meaning but misguided people in response to some cruel and abusive treatment and conditions in state mental health facilities. The results were a disaster. People with schizophrenia and other serious mental conditions were allowed to live in group homes, in apartments and other living situations that put them back into the community. They were encouraged to get employment and get involved with the daily fabric of life. At the time this was happening, however, psychiatric therapeutic interventions were somewhat limited compared to today, and some people were never meant to live on their own. That coupled with the social upheaval and drug experimentation of the mid 60s to mid 70s and beyond really put people who set loose into society with few coping skills at an extreme disadvantage. The communities, the police, the local hospitals and the general public were not equipped to handle them. Both fiscally minded conservatives and social justice liberals embraced the idea. What ended up happening was generations of extremely mentally ill people living on the street who could not take care of themselves who were harmful to themselves and to others. And now it's happening again, thanks to Cuomo Junior and his hangers who have only learned about this in some urban studies program at some fancy university and thought it up while sipping some top shelf booze over conversation at some big donors loft in Tribeca. Read Dennis's article in the post. click on the links below.

I've included links about some abuses and the failures of deinstitutionalizatlion One of them is from 1972, from then-local NYC reporter Geraldo Rivera on Willowbrook

Cuomo Putting Pysch Patients on the Streets, NY Post, Oct 27, 2018

Failure of Deinstitutionalization, 1984 NY Time
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/16/opinion/suffering-streets-deinstitutionalization-22-letter-mouthful-that-once-referred.html

Revisting Willowbrook
http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2016/01/the-story-that-revealed-willowbrooks-horrors/

Julie B. said...

Good lord, think what it's doing to the property values around there. That is a fairly nice area of Queens. Do they even bother to keep the violence-prone patients away from school blocks?

Anonymous said...

James Oddo, Steven Matteo, Nicole Malliotakis, Andrew Lazna and all those other trashy south shore staten island pols will never ever allow this kind of garbage in their community.

Anonymous said...


"Good lord, think what it's doing to the property values around there. That is a fairly nice area of Queens. Do they even bother to keep the violence-prone patients away from school blocks? "

Probably not, Julie... This city is a hot mess...Between Prince Andrew (Cuomo) and Comrade DeBlasio, watch what is going to happen in the next year and a half, never mind four years

Anonymous said...

Creedmore has huge grounds. Why aren't the patients restricted to wandering around there, instead of inflicting them on neighboring communities?

Anonymous said...

"James Oddo, Steven Matteo, Nicole Malliotakis, Andrew Lazna and all those other trashy south shore staten island pols will never ever allow this kind of garbage in their community."

Sounds like they're responding to their constituents - Queens pols should do the same thing!

AC said...

Creedmoor has a whole bunch of abandoned building within a gated ghost town. DICK-BLASIO should put homeless shelters there instead of ruining Queens neighborhoods.