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New York Promised to Help Mentally Ill People as They Left Prison. Here’s What Happened Instead.

As he wandered around the east side of Manhattan, voices rattled around S.D.'s head. It was May 2019, and S.D., a 47-year-old man with schizophrenia, whom I'm naming by his initials for privacy, had just been released from a New York prison.

As he wandered around the east side of Manhattan, voices rattled around S.D.'s head.

It was May 2019, and S.D., a 47-year-old man with schizophrenia, whom I'm naming by his initials for privacy, had just been released from a New York prison.

His worldly possessions included little more than the clothes he'd been given by state officials, a white T-shirt and too-big khaki pants, plus a Metro card. He asked a man selling CDs on the street if he could borrow a cellphone to call his godmother for help.

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As he wandered around the east side of Manhattan, voices rattled around S.D.'s head. It was May 2019, and S.D., a 47-year-old man with schizophrenia, whom I'm naming by his initials for [...]




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