The Adams administration released a new plan Thursday to expand mental health services throughout New York City.

Mayor Eric Adams says the plan will focus on three main areas: addressing teen mental health, supporting those living with severe mental illness and reducing the high-rate drug overdoses.

The city’s Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan joined Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” Friday to discuss the program.

According to Vasan, New York City has reached its highest record for overdose deaths.

“Each year we anticipate those numbers going in the wrong direction because of a rapidly shifting drug supply. Eighty percent of those fatalities involve fentanyl, but also because of the mental health crisis underneath it and what we all been through in the pandemic,” he said.

Vasan said if they were going to reach the administration’s goal to reduce overdose death by 15% by the end of 2025, “we know what strategies work.”

Part of the plan is to bring overdose prevention centers to neighborhoods with high rates of overdose deaths.

Vasan said two existing overdose prevention centers have intervened in over 700 potential fatal overdoses in its first year.

“The substances that are in our drug supply are incredibly powerful,” he said. “We need people to know at a minimum, if they choose to use, if they are addicted and need to use, they need to know that they can be safe and that they can be kept safe.” 

When asked if he’s advising New Yorkers to test if they plan on using as the leader of public health in New York City, he said so many people are turning to substances in this “era of pain.”

“If people are going to use, we want obviously to reduce drug use as much as we can,” Vasan said, adding that if people have the need to use, he recommends them to do it safely.

According to Vasan, there are 250,000 in the city who live with a serious mental illness — adding that about 40% of those are disconnected from treatment.

He said those individuals are all at risk for “descending into crisis” if they lose housing, end up social isolating or more. 

The new plan is expanding into health, housing and creating a new front door for the system that doesn’t involve law enforcement, he said.

“We know that those are the building blocks of a recovery oriented mental health system,” Vasan said. “We can’t just keep lurching from crisis to crisis.”

Vasan referred to mental health as a “human condition,” adding that the pandemic has isolated tons of people from their normal lives, which can be traumatic.

“One thing I know about trauma is the closer you are to it, the further you are to really understanding its ripple effects. We need to connect around this humanity,” he said.

Young people are seen to have higher rates of mental needs. Vasan said the mental health crisis is a powerful crisis that targets younger individuals, teenage girls in particular.

“Frankly, we have to innovate in this space and we have to bring care to where young people spend the most time,” he said. “That means bringing it to our schools, treating our teachers, treating the adults in the room, but also meeting kids where they are with the technologies they use.”

According to Vasan, they learned through the pandemic that young people prefer receiving services through telehealth — a $12 million program for high schoolers and suicide prevention pilot programming at NYC Health + Hospitals.

“We launched $20 million in new resources yesterday on top of $370 million that this administration has already put in year one. But it’s going to continue to grow each year,” he said.