NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday the opening of a therapeutic housing outpost for inmates of Rikers Island as the city continues on its path towards closing the controversial island jail.
The 104-bed unit at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, which City Hall described as the "first of its kind," will serve people in custody with complex medical needs.
These vulnerable detainees will be transferred from the jail "into a therapeutic setting with closer access to specialty care," according to a press release from the mayor's office.
The mayor went to Bellevue Tuesday to cut the ribbon on the new facility, which he called long overdue.
“Today we are charting a different course, one that diverts from the path of neglect and begins the process of closing Rikers Island once and for all,” Mamdani said.
Stanley Richards, commissioner of the NYC Department of Correction, said the facility benefits those in custody and the officers who supervise them. “This moment is what hope looks like,” he said.
It's the first of three "Outposted Therapeutic Housing Units" planned across the city by 2029. The other two are planned at NYC Health+ Hospitals/Woodhull and North Central Bronx (NCB), with 144 and 92 beds, respectively.
