Jordan Neely + the Long Arc of Mental Health Injustice
Why we marginalize people with mental illness (+ how intersectionality relates)
Note: This column in longer than usual, and dedicated to the memory of Justin Neely. CW: This column explores violence and mental illness, and the marginalization that people with mental illness face.
Last week’s column explored the emerging paradigm shift in medicine that acknowledges (but does not yet center) the insight that mental health is socially determined. Today, I’d like to address a related story: the life and tragic murder on May 1 of Jordan Neely, an unhoused person in New York with mental health challenges.
Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, used a chokehold to kill Jordan Neely on a northbound F train in Manhattan. Two other passengers assisted Penny in restraining Jordan. On May 3, the city’s medical examiner classified Neely’s death as a homicide; as of this writing, neither Penny nor those who assisted him have been charged with a crime.
Witnesses said that prior to the incident, Jordan was hungry and thirsty, and had thrown his jacket on the subway floor, yelling that he was ready to go to jail or to die. Yet he neither attacked nor threatened to attack anyone before Daniel Penny choked him to death. Furthermore, none of the passengers on the train stopped Penny from killing him.
What factors were in play here? How can we understand what happened, particularly in light of embodiment—and, of course, the collective disembodiment so common today?
Jordan Neely’s Early Life
Jordan Neely was a dancer and artist known to many New Yorkers for his talent as a moonwalking Michael Jackson impersonator. Dressed as Jackson in his “Thriller” stage, Jordan danced in subways and other public places for more than a decade. His charismatic and talented performances masked his deepening struggles with mental illness. According to Jordan’s friends and family, these struggles were accelerated by early trauma and loss, lack of stable housing, and a foster care system unequipped to address either his loss or his needs.
As a teenager, Jordan lived just south of Jersey City in Bayonne, New Jersey with his mother Christine, a telemarketer. Christine became involved in an abusive relationship with Shawn Southerland, a man fourteen years her senior; Jordan would later tell the court that the two had serious fights on a daily basis.
In 2007, when Jordan was only fourteen years old, Christine failed one day to wake him for school as she always did. When he tried to enter her bedroom to check on her, Southerland prevented him from doing so, and had placed a padlock on the bedroom door.
Four years later, Jordan would testify at Southerland’s murder trial. Southerland had choked his mother to death and disposed of her body in a suitcase on the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway. Southerland was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Alone and grieving the loss of his mother, Jordan was placed in foster care.
Larry Malcolm Smith, Jr., a friend of Jordan’s, told Gothamist that he had first gotten to know Jordan when both boys lived in foster care. Jordan was kind and generous, Smith said: He often shared the money he made dancing with other foster children to help them purchase food or get a haircut.
The subway, said Jordan’s friends, was a place where he felt happy and free to perform as a dancer.
You can watch this video of Jordan dancing to Billie Jean—and moonwalking on a moving subway train. Anyone who loves embodied movement will recognize the joy that Jordan derived from it, and the long hours of practice that underpinned his talent.
A Note About The Historical Significance of Chokeholds:
First, let me state that lynching, a precursor to chokeholds, has long been a tool of white supremacy. This is, in fact, why the military and policing institutions, which have their origins in white supremacy, adopted the use of chokeholds in the first place. Centuries of epigenetic trauma are associated with organized lynching; this predates the use of chokeholds, strangling, and other forms of physical restraint. (You can read about the history of lynchings in this issue of Nicole Cardoza’s Anti-Racism Daily newsletter.)
In its more modern history, the Marines began chokehold training in 2001 as part of a martial arts program. Yet long before that, in 1993, the New York Police Department had already banned the use of chokeholds. In 2021, the Department of Justice issued a memo that directed law enforcement “to revise their policies to explicitly prohibit the use of chokeholds and the carotid restraint technique unless deadly force is authorized.” And as you might guess, the necessity for deadly force is at the center of the debate about Daniel Penny’s murder of Jordan Neely.
Even when a chokehold does not cause death, as it did to George Floyd, Jordan Neely, and so many others, it can cause profound brain damage. When someone administers a chokehold, the victim can become unconscious in three to four seconds. If airflow continues to be restricted, a person can die within three to four minutes. Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, restricted his air flow for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Daniel Penny did the same to Jordan Neely for over fifteen minutes, long past the moment of death.
In December of 2020, referencing the police’s murder of George Floyd the previous June, several neurologists made an appeal for the ban of chokeholds in policing. They stated,
“In short, the implication that there is a safe way for law enforcement to restrain using carotid manipulation, or traumatic manipulation of cerebral blood flow in any form, is simply false. Carotid compression contributes to potential neurologic sequelae via oxygen deprivation, embolic risk from mechanical vessel wall trauma, or arrhythmia. The possibility of devastating repercussions is too high to merit the use of neck restraints in any circumstance. Proponents of this law enforcement tactic claim that carotid restraint is a safer and more humane alternative to other forms of pacification. As neurologists, we know that the current understanding of the brain and carotid neurophysiology and clinical correlation of carotid compression do not support the safe use of chokeholds or strangleholds.”
The Social Forces Behind Jordan’s Murder
Long before he was choked to death, Jordan Neely had to contend with multiple sources of oppression. Let’s explore just a few of those.
The first is racism: New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a statement that clearly identified the problematic way that the public has treated Neely’s death.
“Racism that continues to permeate throughout our society allows for a level of dehumanization that denies Black people from being recognized as victims when subjected to acts of violence,” she said. “Everyone in our city and nation should be reflecting on what this incident represents and says about us.”
Kimberle Crenshaw’s Concept of Intersectionality
In addition, it’s important to expand the framework beyond racism to examine the treatment of mental illness with an intersectional lens—that is to say, to acknowledge the multiple social identities and therefore, nodes of oppression that Jordan experienced: being Black, mentally ill, low income, and unhoused.
Intersectionality is sometimes described as the way different social identities—such as race, class, sexuality—intersect.
While true, this definition leaves out important aspects—for example, the way these identities represent different and compounding nodes of oppression.
A Black woman, for example, experiences both racism and gender discrimination. This means that in comparison, a white woman who experiences gender discrimination also experiences less oppression, a fact overlooked by white women who equate their experience of discrimination with that of women of color.
There’s a meta-level of oppression beyond this. Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, pointed out that discourses that respond only to one identity (such as gender discrimination) further marginalize women of color. The same is true for additional marginalized identities, such as people with disabilities.
Jordan Neely experienced different and compounding forms of oppression: as a Black man, who additionally experienced mental illness, was poor, had been forced to drop out of high school, and was also unhoused.
How We Marginalize Mentally Ill People
Let’s address intersectionality now from the perspective of mental illness.
It is a painful irony: In the United States, after a mass shooting, politicians and civilians (usually those on the political right and who support the widespread use of firearms) often cite mental illness as the impetus behind the shooting. This is a typical response in politicians especially, even when the perpetrator openly embraces a far-right ideology and when the crime meets the criteria for a hate crime. Other criminal behaviors, such as homicides, are also associated with mental illness.
In other words, they minimize true violence as a “mental health issue.” They invoke mental illness to turn attention away from the ideology, speech, and actions that give rise to acts of extremist violence.
In stark contrast, when dealing with actual mental illness, these same people tend to criminalize those with mental illness. They make the assumption that mentally ill people are implicitly violent, another false equivalency. They—and often, we—have little compassion for people with mental health issues.
The belief that people with mental illness are inherently violent persists despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Let’s consider that evidence:
People with mental illnesses are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators.
The justice system also treats people with mental illnesses as criminals. In comparison to the general population, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be arrested and charged, and more likely to be incarcerated for longer periods.
A greater number of persons with mental illness are incarcerated in jails rather than hospitals.
What is the impact of incarceration on the mentally ill? As we all know, jails and prisons are not therapeutic environments but rather, deeply punitive ones. Close to 60 percent of people with mental illnesses receive no mental health treatment while incarcerated.
They are also more likely to face punitive discipline, which further compromises their sense of agency.
They are more likely to be placed in solitary confinement, and spend three times as long there when they are.
This is, of course, a vicious cycle. Solitary confinement is known to cause lasting damage both to the brain and to mental health; it can cause psychosis even in someone who was not previously mentally ill.
The United Nations General Assembly Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were revised in 2015 to extend restrictions on solitary confinement exceeding 15 days.
Recently, a consortium of neuroscientists testified against the use of solitary confinement.
I’d like to cite here the eloquent words of Nelson Mandela, who was speaking about incarceration. These words, of course, apply to mental health incarceration in psychiatric hospitals as well. Mandela said,
“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
The Role of Media in Public Perceptions of Mental Illness
In the wake of Jordan Neely’s death, I was startled and disappointed by the difference in how the New York Times interviews of case workers who knew Jordan and the Guardian’s interviews of caseworkers who knew Jordan.
The New York Times published an article contrasting Neely and Penny. Note the focus and the language in the article, which is laced with words that evoke violence and aggression. The piece focused on criminality, mentioning that Jordan had “racked up more than three dozen arrests,” that “Mr. Neely heavily used K2, the powerful, unpredictable synthetic marijuana,” “threatened to kill” a booth agent. In 2021, they said, “his aggression seemed to peak, when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side” and spent 15 months in jail awaiting a trial. (This, it should be said, occurred during the height of the Covid pandemic.) The Times further mentioned an outreach worker who stated that Neely “was aggressive and incoherent,” and “could be a harm to himself or others if left untreated.”
The Guardian, to their credit, wrote, “Advocates who worked with Neely also described him positively, and said he was simply a person in acute need. “He was a nice person, not aggressive or violent. Everyone who knew him knows that. He’d accept anything you had – many of the homeless down here are sober. They’re needing food or shelter or clothing, not strung out and shooting up dope,” said Minister Ray Tarvin to the Guardian during a protest for Neely on Wednesday in the subway. (It must be said that one can spy a bit of added marginalization in this last comment reserved especially for people with substance use disorder.)
The Open Hearts Initiative builds community support for housing and services for homeless New Yorkers by organizing housed community residents to advocate for housing justice in their own backyards.
"There's been this constant implicit and sometimes explicit link between homelessness and crime—homelessness and lack of safety," said Sara Newman, director of organizing at the Open Hearts Initiative in New York. "The same goes for mental illness. And the solution to that is to make people who are experiencing homelessness or mental illness go away."
What’s Going On with Our Response to Mental Illness?
One of my favorite writers, Roxane Gay, penned a column in the New York Times aptly titled “Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed.” Gay highlights several recent murders in the United States by (largely) armed white men who killed unarmed civilians because someone made them uncomfortable.
In Kansas City, Andrew Lester shot and nearly killed 16-year-old Ralph Yarl for ringing his doorbell. In upstate New York, Kevin Monahan fired twice at a car that had tuned into his driveway, and killed 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis. In a Texas parking lot, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. shot two cheerleaders, Heather Roth and Peyton Washington, after Roth mistakenly got into his car at night after a long practice. And in Cleveland, Texas, a father asked his neighbor, Francisco Opresa, to stop shooting on his porch because his baby was trying to sleep; Opresa walked over to the house and killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, with an AR-15 rifle.
In Roxane’s words,
“Instead of addressing actual problems, like homelessness and displacement, lack of physical and mental health care, food scarcity, poverty, lax gun laws and more, we bury our heads in the sand. Only when this unchecked violence comes to our doorstep do we maybe care enough to try to effect change.”
For me, the most disturbing aspect of the essay were the responses in the comments section, which was closed after nearly 2,500 comments. Countless readers objected to Gay’s position, saying that the people riding the F train were afraid for their lives. (In 2021, Jordan had punched a woman in the face and spent time in jail, though none of the riders on Jordan’s train knew his history.)
But why are we afraid, and of what?
About six months ago, while researching schizophrenia and its connections with embodiment for the book, I surveyed my Facebook community about what, exactly, frightens us about people who exhibit signs of psychosis and how we experience that fear in our bodies.
Many people cited their own history of trauma, a factor that can make us fearful for our own safety in many situations. Multiple people gamely explored their own bodily response to someone in a state of psychosis. “I didn’t understand what they were saying or doing, and so they felt ‘unpredictable,’” said one person “For me it’s the unpredictability, not knowing what a person will do or say next,” said another. “It’s an unsettled, flighty feeling, butterflies in my stomach and scanning for safety,” said someone else.
This same fear happens even to people with years of experience in mental health. “I notice a contraction in my gut, and my heartbeat quickens,” acknowledged someone with years of experience with inpatient psychiatry.
Personally, I’ve experienced a similar fear, both as a psychologist at a psychiatric hospital working with inpatients, and also with relatives or friends contending with psychotic processes. It is, in my opinion, a primal fear of what we define as other, of being out of “control,” and of a deeply unfamiliar experience intersecting with our own.
The common thread that unites these experiences: the fear of unpredictability and with it, loss of control.
Being aware of this fear and how it manifests in our bodies, and of the social messages around self-control, is the first step toward the compassion, and compassionate action, needed for social change.
If Hospitalization and Incarceration Are Not The Answers, What Do We Do Instead?
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson outlined many of the challenges facing unhoused people throughout the United States. He wrote, “We have neither the legal framework nor the inpatient facilities to compel an adult such as Neely to receive the kind of effective, long-term treatment that might have changed his life. We live with the consequences.” Robinson is half right: Authorities cannot compel someone to receive treatment unless they are an immediate danger to themselves or others—although that may be changing. But he refers to “effective, long-term treatment,” a notion that many still believe in. And we have neither effective nor long-term treatments.
New York City (and other cities such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and my own city of Boston) are underfunded and lack crisis centers and services where people in mental distress can find assistance. In New York, a city of 8.8 million people, there are currently only 50 crisis beds.
Yet in late 2022, New York Mayor Eric Adams launched plans to reinstitute involuntary hospitalization for those with severe mental illness. He directed police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they posed no threat to others. Other large cities seem to be moving in this direction as well. In California, Governor Gavin Newson signed a law that could force homeless people with mental illnesses into treatment. Other states are doing the same. And too often, the police are called to enforce these laws.
According to the World Health Organization, schizophrenia affects about 24 million people worldwide. It is a serious illness that disrupts cognitive, emotional, social, and bodily functioning. And yet, its origins remain unknown. The American Psychiatric Association calls it a brain disorder. The National Institute of Health labels it a mental illness; the United Nations, a disease of disruptions in thinking. No one knows what causes it—or for the most part, what helps to alleviate it.
I interviewed Martin Voss, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist in Berlin, about the issue. Voss openly acknowledges the current lack of understanding about schizophrenia. “We give people medication,” Martin told me, “and we don’t really know how, or even if, it works.”
Martin Voss is an avid proponent of Soteria, an approach named after the Greek goddess of safety, salvation, and perhaps most importantly, preservation from harm. Soteria offers an alternative approach to the medicalized treatment of psychosis. It provides person-centered care, which includes healthy meals, creative expressive therapies such as art, music, and writing; engagement with nature; exercise and breathwork; meditations and guided relaxation; sleep hygiene; meetings with family and other support persons. Soteria does have on-site psychiatry and medication management. However, its approach treats psychiatric medication as a personal choice, and offers alternative modalities to supplement it, such as herbalism and diet.
Although there are very few scientific studies on Soteria method, these studies indicate that it often obtains better results in people with first- or second-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders with markedly lower use of antipsychotics when compared to conventional approaches.
In other countries, we can see a community-based approach to people with mental health issues, such as the small city of Geel in Belgium. For many generations, people in Geel have been practicing community healthcare successfully by integrating people with mental illnesses into homes in the community.
Between 1968 and 1977, despite widespread resistance from nursing staff, relatives, and even the patients themselves, a nearby Belgian city made the decision to transfer 78 chronically mentally ill patients with schizophrenia and personality disorders to Geel’s family care system. At the end of the 10-year study, only nine out of nearly 80 had returned to the hospital.
There are many other countries who embrace this community-based approach to addressing severe mental health issues.
Where Do We Go From Here?
When I was 21, and working in an inpatient psychiatric hospital on the South Side of Chicago, I noticed something odd on the adult unit. Those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia often made comments about me that were preternaturally intuitive—and, no less, liked to broadcast their insights in voices loud enough for the entire unit to hear (to the delight of their fellow patients). After the first few times this happened, I went in a mild freakout to my supervisor. “Oh yes,” he told me. “That’s happened to me countless times.”
The intuition and interpersonal insight of people with severe forms of mental illness made a lasting impression on me. I’ve often wondered whether that’s part of why we fear them so strongly.
In 1972, long before he became popular for his work in alternative healing, the physician Andrew Weil published the book The Natural Mind: An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness. One particular section, on “positive psychosis,” struck me like lightning. I draw from that section here:
“Psychotics are persons whose non-ordinary experience is exceptionally strong. If they have not integrated this experience into conscious awareness (or so repressed it that it causes physical illness), it takes very negative mental forms. But every psychotic is a potential sage or healer and to the extent that negative psychotics are burdens to society, to that extent can positive psychotics be assets. (In American Indian societies, what we might call psychotic experience in adolescence is a sign that the individual is chosen as a future shaman.) To effect this transformation we must remove obstacles to the change (such as antipsychotic drugs and most institutional psychiatry) and bring patients into contact with healed compatriots—that is, with persons who have themselves made the transformation. Such people exist; we simply must allow psychotics to seek them out and learn from them.
“The National Institute of Mental Health defines schizophrenia as the nation’s number-one mental health priority. But in its totally straight approach, it has stated the problem in an insoluble way. Schizophrenia is indeed incurable in allopathic terms because it cannot be made to go away. (Once one realizes that the single authorized version of reality psychiatrists promote with their talk of “reality testing” is a fiction, there is no going back.) Much of NIMH’s effort has been directed toward a fantastic goal: the discovery of the biochemical cause of psychosis, an effort that has been a dismal failure for twenty years now… If it sticks to its present course, NIMH will be the last institution in America to recognize the positive potential of psychosis—a potential so overwhelming that I am almost tempted to call psychotics the evolutionary vanguard of our species. They possess the secret of changing reality by changing the mind; if they can learn to use that talent for positive ends, there are no limits to what they can accomplish.”
My hope is that we advocate just as strongly for an end toward all these forms of violence toward those with mental health challenges targeted by social violence as we do for those targeted by gun violence.
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Sources:
Larry Malcolm Smith, Jr. told Gothamist that he had first gotten to know Jordan: Brand, D. (2023, May 4). Who was Jordan Neely? Friends recall ‘sweet kid,’ talented performer killed in subway chokehold. Gothamist. https://gothamist.com/news/who-was-jordan-neely-friends-recall-sweet-kid-talented-performer-killed-in-subway-chokehold
In 2021, the Department of Justice issued a memo that stated: Jordan Neely’s family says his chokehold death was an “injustice.” (2023, May 5). ABC7 New York. https://abc7ny.com/jordan-neely-choke-hold-subway-death-marine/13215841/
Johnny Grima, a formerly houseless man who was aboard the train: Lach, E. (2023, May 6). An Eyewitness to Jordan Neely’s Death. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/an-eyewitness-to-jordan-neelys-death
Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd, restricted his air flow for 9 minutes and 29 seconds: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/former-police-officer-who-who-kneeled-on-george-floyds-back-gets-3-5-year-sentence
In December of 2020, several neurologists made an appeal for the ban of chokeholds in policing: Berkman, J. M., Rosenthal, J. A., & Saadi, A. (2021). Carotid Physiology and Neck Restraints in Law Enforcement: Why Neurologists Need to Make Their Voices Heard. JAMA Neurology, 78(3), 267–268. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaneurol.2020.4669. See also: Kolata, G. (2023, May 5). Doctors Have Long Warned That Chokeholds Are Deadly. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/health/chokeholds-deaths-jordan-neely.html
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a statement that clearly identifies: Louis, E. (2023, May 6). Jordan Neely Was Already Dead. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jordan-neely-nyc-homeless-epidemic.html
Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, pointed out that discourses: Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
People with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims than perpetrators: Steinert, T., Lepping, P., Bernhardsgrütter, R., Conca, A., Hatling, T., Janssen, W., Keski-Valkama, A., Mayoral, F., & Whittington, R. (2010). Incidence of seclusion and restraint in psychiatric hospitals: a literature review and survey of international trends. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 45(9), 889–897. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-009-0132-3
And in the criminal justice system, which treats people with mental illnesses as criminals: Watson, A., Hanrahan, P., Luchins, D., & Lurigio, A. (2001). Mental health courts and the complex issue of mentally ill offenders. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.), 52(4), 477–481. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.52.4.477
A greater number of persons with mental illness are incarcerated in jails: More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals: A Survey of the States | Office of Justice Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/more-mentally-ill-persons-are-jails-and-prisons-hospitals-survey
Close to 60 percent of people with mental illnesses receive no treatment: Mental Health Treatment While Incarcerated | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.). Retrieved May 9, 2023, from https://www.nami.org/Advocacy/Policy-Priorities/Improving-Health/Mental-Health-Treatment-While-Incarcerated
They are also more likely to face punitive discipline, which further impact: Herman, C. (2019, February 3). Most Inmates With Mental Illness Still Wait For Decent Care. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/03/690872394/most-inmates-with-mental-illness-still-wait-for-decent-care.
They are more likely to be placed in solitary confinement, and spend three times: Simes, J. T., Western, B., & Lee, A. (2022). Mental health disparities in solitary confinement. Criminology, 60(3), 538–575. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12315. See also: Henry B. F. (2022). Disparities in use of disciplinary solitary confinement by mental health diagnosis, race, sexual orientation and sex: Results from a national survey in the United States of America. Criminal behaviour and mental health : CBMH, 32(2), 114–123. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.2240
Solitary confinement is known to cause lasting damage both to the brain and to mental health: Initiative, P. P. (n.d.). The research is clear: Solitary confinement causes long-lasting harm. Retrieved September 20, 2022, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/08/solitary_symposium/
Neuroscientists recently testified against the use of solitary: Smith, D. G. (n.d.). Neuroscientists Make a Case against Solitary Confinement. Scientific American. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neuroscientists-make-a-case-against-solitary-confinement/. See also: Coppola F. (2019). The brain in solitude: an (other) eighth amendment challenge to solitary confinement. Journal of law and the biosciences, 6(1), 184–225. https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsz014
The United Nations General Assembly Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were revised in 2015: https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/mandela_rules.shtml
One of my favorite writers, Roxane Gay, penned a column in the New York Times aptly titled: Gay, R. (2023, May 4). Opinion. Making People Uncomfortable Can Now Get You Killed. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/jordan-neely-killed.html
New York City (and other cities such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and my own city of Boston) are underfunded: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jordan-neely-nyc-homeless-epidemic.html
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson outlined many of the challenges facing unhoused people: Robinson, E. (2023, May 9). Opinion | Society made the choices that put Jordan Neely on that F train. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/08/jordan-neely-death-homeless-mental-health/
Yet in late 2022, New York Mayor Eric Adams launched plans to reinstitute involuntary hospitalization: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jordan-neely-nyc-homeless-epidemic.html
Although there are very few scientific studies on Soteria method, these studies indicate: Calton, T., Ferriter, M., Huband, N., & Spandler, H. (2008). A systematic review of the Soteria paradigm for the treatment of people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia bulletin, 34(1), 181–192. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbm047
Between 1968 and 1977, despite widespread resistance from nursing staff, relatives, and even the patients: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/24/australia-can-learn-from-a-belgium-town-where-people-with-mental-illness-live-with-dignity-in-the-community
In 1972, long before he became popular for his work in alternative healing, the physician Andrew Weil: Weil, A. (1972) The Natural Mind: A New Way of Looking at Drugs and the Higher Consciousness. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.