Ongoing and routine violence at the Department of Social Services (DSS), St. John’s Homeless Shelter, and Cayuga Medical Center (CMC) was the focus of a prolonged discussion at the April 23rd meeting of the Tompkins County Public Safety Committee. St. John’s is contracted by the county to provide services at the shelter. Staff and their family members have been threatened and stalked.
The discussion began as a report of an April 15th meeting by County Administrator Lisa Holmes that was convened on short notice at her request. The meeting included District Attorney Matt Van Houten, multiple County Legislators including Chair & Vice Chair of the Legislature Dan Klein and Shawna Black, Chair of the Public Safety Committee Legislator Rich John, Housing and Economic Development Committee Chair Legislator Greg Mezey, President and CEO of Cayuga Medical Center Dr. Martin Stallone, Commissioner of Tompkins County Whole Health Frank Kruppa, Commissioner of DSS Kit Kephart, Sheriff Derek Osborne, Undersheriff Jenn Olin, and Ithaca Police Chief Thomas Kelly along with other representatives from the hospital.
Staff at all three locations have been threatened and assaulted. DSS has been locked down for extended periods of time due to disturbances in the lobby & courtyard, interfering with the function of operations. Numerous staff have quit or walked off the job at St. John’s shelter, jeopardizing continued operations at the facility. CMC workers are assaulted on a daily basis.
“Our hospital partners pointed to the number of CMC healthcare workers that are assaulted on a daily basis at the hospital. So these issues impacted our hospital partners as much as they did our county staff and nonprofit partners,” Holmes said.
“There is an escalation of violence we are seeing in these instances,” Holmes said.
Staff who are victimized are said to be hesitant to file for orders of protection, as their name and other personal information would be on record as part of the order. “The staff that are threatened or assaulted have the option of filing for an order of protection, but they’re often reluctant to do so for fear of retribution or being targeted because they as individuals have to file for those orders of protection,” Holmes said.
“I think what’s happening right now is that we have a workforce issue, and it doesn’t matter how much we’re paying people. This work is super hard work and for them to go to work and to be yelled at, for them to be physically assaulted, for some of their families to be threatened and stalked, you know I think at some point we have to ask ourselves the questions of; If we don’t have enough workforce, we’re not going to be able to provide these services to the 95% of the people that are law-abiding and that truly and desperately need these services,” Black said.
“There have to be some consequences to keep everyone safe,” Black said.
The population responsible for violent conduct is relatively small.
“In relation to the population of Tompkins County, the people that we’re seeing, it’s a fairly small group, relatively,” John said.
Potentially creating a list of the twenty individuals most in crisis was mentioned during the course of the meeting. They are primarily homeless, drug users, and people suffering from mental illness.
“I think the drugs that are on the street right now are much more powerful. They’re causing really aggressive behaviors that are hurting people,” Black said.
“There’s an ebb & flow of drugs in the community and it seems like there’s more methamphetamine, which tends to trigger that kind of behavior,” John said.
“They are often, I believe, times where individuals may be using substances and/or with some combination of mental health concern and have destroyed property, threatened staff, by name threatened staff’s family, etc, and/or actually assaulted staff,” Holmes said.
“My guess is that at any given point we could sit down with the Sheriff and Dan Cornell and they could probably come up with a list of twenty people that are repeat offenders that are severe strugglers here in the county,” Black said.
The discussion also touched upon New York State’s bail reform law, which limits judges’ discretion in issuing bail. Instead of arraigning individuals for signed orders of protection, City court judges are issuing appearance tickets. Assaults occur, suspects are given appearance tickets and return again to continue destroying property, threatening staff & their families, and committing assault.
“I refuse to believe that bail reform was intended to just not do anything. I think that bail reform is admirable and it’s sensible. But at the same time there are people that we are not helping because we just we have no policy to help them effectively,” John said.
“10 years ago, perhaps, if some of these types of behaviors were exhibited or someone was assaulted, our law enforcement professionals could remove those individuals for longer than, you know, a few hours, they would not come back,” Holmes said. “What we’re finding more is that law enforcement does their best to deescalate themselves and remove the person from the situation, and they’re back in an hour’s time with this doing the same behavior,” Holmes said.
The discussion included talk of potential solutions to mitigate the harm caused by this population of ‘severe strugglers.’ The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program was mentioned along with the Crisis Alternative Response and Engagement (CARE) teams. LEAD directs individuals accused of low-level offenses to community-based services, rather than prosecuting and jailing them. CARE are law enforcement and mental health co-response teams that are organized by Tompkins County Whole Health in partnership with the Sheriff’s Office and the Ithaca Police Department.
“The LEAD program requires that the person be coherent enough and willing enough and able to process the decision of ‘Will I be arrested or will I connect with services?’ Van Houten said. “There are people that don’t fit in that category because they don’t think they need help and they are otherwise in too much trauma, psychiatric trauma, to make that decision to connect with LEAD.”
“We’re talking about some individuals that are completely unmotivated to change, don’t believe they need to make any changes,” Tompkins County Probation Director Dan Cornell said.
Cornell said that there are individuals that CARE team members will no longer attempt to interact with due to being stalked.
“To my knowledge, a couple of them, the CARE team won’t even meet with anymore because they’ve stalked the CARE team members,” Cornell said.
“If we had some kind of mental health crisis center, that would be a huge resource to divert those individuals from the ER or from some other scenario to a place that can adequately address their crisis and stabilize them, and then help them out and also separate them from the place where they’re creating havoc,” Van Houten said.
The county legislature has earmarked $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for the creation of a Mental Health Stabilization unit though CMC. This effort has been stymied by the rapid unplanned closure of the Alcohol and Drug Council, which provided services to those with substance abuse issues.
“I know Cayuga Medical is very much wanting to move in that direction,” Holmes said. “The new variable in the equation is that the Alcohol and Drug Council has closed its doors.”
Holmes explained that the NY Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) is currently working with the Tompkins County Whole Health Department to produce a Request For Proposal (RFP) to provide both a Mental Health Stabilization Unit and detox facility.
Legislator Mike Sigler questioned whether the projects need to be integrated from their inception, suggesting to use the currently vacant detox facility to immediately create a Mental Health Stabilization Unit.
“Why can’t we move ahead kind of with the one thing that we actually have funding for, and then the detox center obviously we can keep working on?” Sigler said.
“We may end up being forced to do that,” Holmes responded. “There is a lot of interconnectedness between the two they would like to interweave if possible.”
“The money’s got to be spent by a certain time and it just seems like the building’s sitting up there, I think relatively empty. I mean, that could become your mental health stabilization unit, and then you add on later. It doesn’t seem like you have to have the whole apple at one time,” Sigler said.
“The building itself is part of the RFP so I think that there would be cost efficiencies to be gained,” Holmes explained, “if we were able to do it as one. If we’re not able to then, within the time frame, then we may have to make other plans.”