How Mayor Adam’s Directive Affects the Autistic Community
Last week, Mayor Adams announced a new controversial plan aimed at helping the homeless population affected by mental illness. Effective immediately, the directive allows for “involuntary removal” and hospitalization of individuals who appear to be “mentally ill,” display an “inability to meet basic living needs,” and who conduct themselves “in a manner likely to result in serious harm to self or others.” Many have raised issues on the capacity of police and other first responders to gauge who fall under these criteria, and expressed fear of excessive and unnecessary forced hospitalizations.
There has been a concerning lack of talk, however, on how this will affect the autistic homeless population. Compared to the about 30% of homeless people who are mentally ill, around 12% of homeless people show autistic traits. While autism is not a mental illness, many first responders including police, EMS, and crisis teams, might falsely identify it as such, and fail to accommodate the specific needs of an autistic person in crisis.
A police officer might misconstrue certain autistic behaviors (rocking back and forth, pacing or running from overstimulation, loud vocalizations, hand flapping) as aggression. They might overstimulate an autistic person into having a meltdown, further escalating a situation. They might interpret someone who is non-speaking or someone who can only “mumble” as unable to think and communicate thoughts, and withhold them from AAC devices or an interpreter.
Mayor Adams started his announcement by illustrating mental illness as people who “shadow box” or “mumble” to themselves, an example of conflating people outside of neurotypicality as mentally ill. Autism, or any other neurodivergent brain type, is not a mental illness, and autistic people do not belong in mental hospitals if they are not harming themself or others.
The overstimulation and lack of accommodations for autistic individuals in mental hospitals will cause more harm than good. Institutionalizing autistic people is an absolute last resort, especially when there are far better options in terms of helping autistic people who are homeless. Providing them with a quiet room while they talk with a social worker is better than forcing them to sit in a loud psychiatric hospital waiting room for several hours. Community based programs and programs for the disabled are better than incarcerating autistic individuals who haven’t committed any crime.
What is being done to be sure that first responders and mobile crisis teams are able to differentiate mental illness from neurodiversity, and make sure autistic individuals are given the care that they need instead of traumatizing them further?
The directive mentioned incorporating new training to mobile crisis teams and police officers. Will this include autism identification and sensitivity training? Will police be informed on topics such as the extreme discomfort a pat down can give an autistic person, how yelling can cause sensory overload or a meltdown, or different methods of communication in the autistic community?
Additionally, the directive mentioned a hotline for officers to call when they need advice on a mental health situation, and a “broader range of licensed mental health professionals to staff our public crisis teams.” Will these initiatives include autism specialists who can assist officers and crisis teams, and provide autism evaluations when necessary?
The lack of precision of the directive, specifically on letting officers decide what qualifies as “mentally ill,” is a cause for concern. More needs to be done to protect the neurodivergent homeless population.
In response to this announcement and the lack of attention to how this might affect the autistic community, I felt the need to reach out to the administration to ask for clarification, and propose steps to adjusting the directive to be more specific and accommodating to all neurotypes. Here is the letter I sent the mayor's office raising the questions I mentioned in this post.
Here is a link on different ways to contact his office, either through postal mail, phone, or by webform. The only way for our voices to be heard is for all of us collectively to call for change. While there is not much chatter currently about how this affects our community, by many of us reaching out and raising our concerns, slowly we might alter the discourse and guide future policies in the right direction.
