New York's Rikers closure plan faces funding test as 70 groups urge Mamdani to pay for housing and reentry

New York City's plan to close Rikers Island faces another funding test. More than 70 criminal justice, legal and social-service organisations in the Close Rikers Campaign are urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fund housing, treatment, diversion and reentry programs in the November financial plan due later this month, or the closure will keep slipping. City Hall said it would review the proposals. (Photo: file photo of the Rikers Island jail complex. Photo: ABC News.)

What the groups want funded

In a letter to the mayor, the groups asked for at least $35 million in the city budget to be shifted to new crime prevention, diversion and reentry programs. Their specific requests include $20 million to create 650 units of supportive housing for people involved in the criminal justice system who also have a mental health diagnosis — a proposal first made by the Independent Rikers Commission; $10 million for alternatives to incarceration; $10 million for reentry services; $1.7 million for an outpatient competency restoration pilot; and $3.5 million to open four additional crisis respite centers, offering people in a mental health crisis an alternative to hospital. The signatories include Freedom Agenda, Brooklyn Defender Services, The Legal Aid Society and dozens of other groups.

The population problem: 6,661 people against 4,400 beds

The groups say the city cannot wait for new borough jails to solve a population problem that exists now. Rikers held about 6,661 people at the start of November, according to the Queens Daily Eagle, while the four planned borough facilities are designed for no more than 4,400 people and are not expected to all be completed until at least 2032. City law still requires the Rikers complex to close by August 2027, and city officials have acknowledged the deadline cannot be met.

The November financial plan will show the answer

A mayoral spokesperson told the Queens Daily Eagle that City Hall would review the proposals. Advocates say the November financial plan will show whether the administration treats these services as core closure infrastructure or another item that can wait. The Commission on Community Reinvestment and the Closure of Rikers Island will hold a public hearing on November 17. Since taking office in January, Mamdani has signed an executive order to develop a plan to end solitary confinement in city jails and appointed a formerly incarcerated person as jails commissioner; in January, the judge overseeing the jails appointed an independent remediation manager to take control of them to address safety and management failures.