The Adams’ administration is trying to connect more homeless addicts with treatment and even controversial “safe” injection sites, as it surfaced that the disturbed man fatally choked on a train last week used K2.
The city Department of Health last week issued proposals to award $100,000-a-year, two-year grants to three social-service providers to boost the effort, just days before mentally ill vagrant Jordan Neely — who self-medicated with the powerful synthetic marijuana known as K2 — was put in a fatal chokehold by former Marine Daniel Penny after threatening straphangers.
The providers to be awarded the contracts already conduct outreach to homeless individuals and will be tasked with implementing and expanding “comprehensive harm reduction,” the city said.
The multimillion-dollar program will run at least through 2035.
“There is a high prevalence of overdose mortality, including from opioid overdoses, among people experiencing homelessness (PEH),” says the plan, drafted by the department’s fundraising arm, the Fund for Public Health, and sent to potential bidders for the two-year contract.
In New York City, drug overdose continues to be a leading cause of death among PEH.
Potential risk has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 emergency, including from disruptions to support systems and additional barriers to engaging people into substance use harm reduction services and treatment.
“Substance use-related harms and overdose deaths are preventable. A critical strategy to addressing the overdose crisis is expanding access to substance use-related information, resources, supports, and services to people who use drugs (PWUD) who are also experiencing homelessness,” the plan said.
The Health Department also will provide training for providers to increase their efforts to engage homeless individuals who use drugs and establish benchmarks to get them into treatment or “harm-reduction” programs.
The social-services groups will:
The initiative will also train workers on the importance of using “de-stigmatizing language” when engaging homeless people who are addicts or abuse drugs.
The two-year contracts will run from July 1 through June 30, 2035.
Eligible bidders include community-based organizations, faith-based groups and local health centers.
The move was set into motion right before Neely, 30, was choked to death by the 24-year-old Penny in a disturbing caught-on-video incident.
Neely, who had been considered “dangerous” and suffering from mental-health problems, had 42 prior arrests and was acting aggressively before the former Marine took him down.
The dead man first fell into a depression after his mother was murdered by her partner in 2007 and later battled schizophrenia and PTSD, ingesting K2 to dull his pain, his uncle had told The Post.
His family and supporters say he was the victim of a system that failed him and that Penny committed a crime by overreacting and killing him.
Penny’s supporters cite Neely’s randomly violent past and say the ex-military man never meant for Neely to die.
Health Department spokesman Patrick Gallahue, addressing the agency’s move to improve services for homeless addicts, said in a statement, “The city works to meet New Yorkers where they are with services and care.
“That’s something we’re proud to expand under this administration. We look forward to working with applicants.”
Adams last year ordered city homeless encampments be cleaned up after discovering they were drug dens filled with hundreds of syringes.
Overdose deaths have been at an all-time high in the state – the vast majority from fentanyl deaths – and New York City accounts for a higher percentage of fatalities, homeless individuals among them.
The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a report in January that found 2,668 overdose deaths in 2021 compared with 2,103 in 2020. Fentanyl was found in 80 percent of drug overdose deaths in the Big Apple in 2021.