City Council, advocates celebrate $50 million mental health and safety investment, call on Mayor Adams to prioritize Rikers closure

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, joined by fellow councilmembers and mental health advocates, celebrated on Monday the $50 million investment in mental health and safety initiatives made in the fiscal year 2026 adopted New York City budget.

At a press event on the steps of City Hall, Speaker Adams called on Mayor Eric Adams to prioritize the implementation of the allocated funds and the legally-mandated closure of the Rikers Island jail complex.

“The council is proud to have secured over $50 million in meaningful investments into mental health care programs and essential safety solutions in this year’s city budget that our communities have long needed,” Speaker Adams said Monday. “These investments are critical to our goals of improving mental health issues in our city, safely reducing the inflated jail population, and, ultimately, closing Rikers for good.”

Jail reform advocates and local legislators have long accused New York City of failing to adequately monitor conditions at Rikers, which has so far reported nine inmate deaths in 2025. A judge ruled in May to place Rikers under federal receivership, citing a failure at the city level to remediate “the ongoing violations of the constitutional rights of people in custody in the New York City jails.”

Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

In June, two inmate deaths at Rikers within 78 minutes prompted an investigation from the Department of Correction into conditions at the facility

Some in the City Council, including Speaker Adams, worry that Mayor Adams is not moving the process along as quickly as desired.

“For too long, the city’s failure to effectively address the mental health crisis and resistance to advancing proven solutions has allowed Rikers to become a de facto mental health facility, an injustice we must confront,” Speaker Adams said. “The mayoral administration must take immediate action to urgently and appropriately implement these funds to expand programs, so all New Yorkers can be healthy and safe.”

The $50 million investment in the city budget aims to reduce incarceration rates by focusing on mental health and root causes of crime. The investments include funds for mental health response teams, crisis centers, and anti-recidivism initiatives — strategies that will, the City Council hopes, reduce jail populations and allow for a smoother transition away from Rikers.

“Instead of receiving the care they need, too many New Yorkers struggling with mental health challenges are inappropriately funneled into the justice system, where they get stuck in harmful cycles of trauma and violence,” Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala said.

Over half of the inmates currently held at Rikers have been diagnosed with a mental illness, with one in five being diagnosed with a serious mental health condition.

“Rikers has become one of the largest providers of psychiatric care in the country, with half its population diagnosed with a mental illness,” said Council Member Linda Lee, Chair of the Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities and Addiction. “True rehabilitation requires equipping our city with the tools to deliver life-saving care, reduce recidivism, and expand supportive housing for those most in need.”

Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

In a statement to amNewYork, First Deputy Press Secretary for the Mayor Liz Garcia wrote that “Mayor Adams believes that the best way to keep people out of jail is through upstream solutions that educate and engage individuals before they make contact with the justice system, and by addressing mental health issues through the health care system, not jail cells.”

“In the Adams administration’s ‘Best Budget Ever’ — which was passed unanimously by the City Council — we invested billions of dollars toward expanded shelter capacity, psychiatric care, substance use treatment, support for homeless youth, and more,” Garcia wrote, noting additions in the budget addressing gang, youth, and domestic violence. “We will continue to make investments to help keep our most vulnerable New Yorkers out of jail and in their communities.”