It could happen all over again.
A plan by the Cuomo administration to transfer thousands of mentally ill residents out of adult homes to so-called “community-based” housing will likely lead to thousands more homeless people on the street, warned Pat Webdale, whose daughter, Kendra, was fatally pushed in front of a subway train by schizophrenic man in 1999.
“It would be just like deinstitutionalization, the same as putting people on the street,” Webdale told The Post. “That’s not a good idea.”
A panel convened by Cuomo is scrambling to comply with a federal court order that ruled disabled people — including those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — were being segregated, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The mentally ill residents, as many as 4,000 to 6,000 in the state, would be transferred to “supportive” housing, often private apartments where they would live largely on their own.
“They are going to deteriorate worse than they were in the first place,” warned Webdale, who helped champion Kendra’s Law following her daughter’s murder. The law allows the courts to order a mentally ill person to receive treatment.
Jeffrey Hillman, the shoeless, homeless man who roams Midtown and achieved Internet fame after a cop was photographed giving him boots, has his own federally subsidized apartment in The Bronx and is supposed to receive an array of social services.
“The US Supreme Court decision [requires] that people get the services they need so that they can live as independently as possible,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
“Clearly, putting people on the street without that treatment would not accomplish this goal.”