Ahead of Mamdani taking office, Mayor Adams makes changes in NYC response to mental health calls
The Adams administration plans to abandon the city’s non-police mental health response team, or B-HEARD, program, effectively moving it outside the jurisdiction of the FDNY.
Under the changes announced by City Hall, NYC Health + Hospitals, which currently manages the program with the FDNY, would fully manage the program.
“This new model for B-HEARD will allow our FDNY paramedics to focus more on other emergency response units as part of our city’s efforts to improve ambulance response times and use our resources more efficiently, while continuing to respond to the mental health emergencies we continue to see play out in our city,” Mayor Adams, who is leaving office at the end of the year, said in a statement.
The move away from a public safety response bears some similarities to the incoming Mamdani administration’s push to expand the program and change how the city handles mental health emergencies. Zohran Mamdani pledged to bring the program under the new Ministry of Community Safety and hire peer counselors to respond to mental health crises.
“We remain confident that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will implement his comprehensive vision for B-HEARD within the Department of Community Safety so that we can finally confront our city’s serious mental health crisis head-on and ensure excellent public safety for all New Yorkers,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said in response to the announcement.
Katz, who said he hopes to remain in his position under Mamdani, noted that the new model could make it easier to expand the program and could help patients find long-term care since H+H already provides the bulk of mental health services in the city. B-HEARD currently operates in less than half of the city’s 78 police stations.
The revamped response teams would consist of a nurse, a social worker and an ambulance driver, instead of EMT responders. EMT workers will be reassigned within the FDNY once the transition takes effect in spring 2026, said Dr. Mitch Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals.
Katz also said Thursday that this new model would help speed up the FDNY’s response times, which have continued to lengthen in recent years.
