Adams $650M plan for homeless mentally ill holds a mirror to his troubled tenure

Last Thursday, Mayor Adams went up to Harlem to make his fourth State of the City address — his last one before his June re-election primary.The mayor’s speech was a snapshot of his re-election dilemma, and that of the voters: On broad policy and plans, he’s often right.It’s just that he bumbles the execution.The mayor’s big idea last week was tackling street and subway homelessness.Adams wants to “invest” $650 million over five years across three homeless initiatives, two of which target the homeless population responsible for public disorder and, often, violent crime.The mayor’s first proposal would add 900 more “safe haven” shelter beds, for a total of 4,900.Unlike traditional men’s homeless shelters, safe haven shelters offer single rooms, and what the mayor called “personalized support” for residents.People who reject shelters because they see them as dangerous or chaotic often accept safe haven shelter.The second proposal would create a 100-bed housing facility for homeless people with serious mental illness.These ideas are good, but their presentation highlights the mayor’s deficiencies.Adams offered no firm timeline for the new psychiatric facility, and no proposed location.That would be OK if the mayor had built up a track record of executing on big things in his first three years in office — but he hasn’t.His main public-works project so far, remaking Fifth Avenue, won’t even start construction until 2028.Plus, it’s rather late in the day to be announcing this idea.No, of course a mayor doesn’t have to propose all his plans on his first day in office.But this mayor (and the governor) have allegedly been focusing on the crisis of the seriously mentally ill homeless since 2022.

 That year, on his sixth day in office, the mayor stood with Gov.Hochul and promised to focus on “serious criminals, like the one that stabbed the individual .

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yesterday, on the subway system.”A month later, weeks after a differ...