In this city of crazies, lots of people joked that a judge’s ruling to release mental patients from group homes and allow them to live in their own apartments was nothing special. But not Post columnist Andrea Peyser, who calls the decision (cue eye-roll) "insanity." Peyser opines that the move will strengthen “the army of the damned,” leading to more incidents like a 2005 stabbing by an unsupervised mental patient who went off his meds and attacked a baby. She also accuses the judge who made the ruling, Nicholas Garaufis, of a potential conflict of interest.
Judge Garaufis—the same who ruled in favor of minorities in several cases concerning racism in the FDNY—is married to a board member at the Fountain House, an institution that according to Peyser, “supplies the very "supported" housing units to the city that the judge so loves.” Garaufis says he disclosed that information back in 2007, and no one objected. The columnist says he declined further comment.
Peyser also suggests the mental patients will be pressured into accepting supported living, when they're not really ready to care for themselves. To back up the proposition, she turns to the owner of Wavecrest, one of the for-profit group homes that will likely lose residents as a result of the ruling: "Basically, the judge gave [supported living providers] the authority to harass these residents until they say yes," he says.
Despite a series of Times articles that exposed terrible, "warehouse-like" conditions in many group homes, Peyser thinks Garaufis's ruling is a step backward for the mentally ill. “Group homes are not perfect, but they're not the hell pits of yesteryear. They are the kindest solution for those who need help,” she says. And just wait until these newly-released patients find their way over to Peyer's hated Times Square pedestrian plazas!
