#Chirlane McCray’s new ThriveNYC website reveals $1.25B program’s empty boasts

NYC First lady Chirlane McCray; a screengrab from ThriveNYC’s Data Dashboard
Stefan Jeremiah

First lady Chirlane McCray’s ThriveNYC unveiled a splashy new website Monday purporting to show the $1.25 billion plan has “dramatically improved the landscape of mental health services in New York City over the last five years.”

But a closer look at geocoded maps and colorful bar graphs in the “Data Dashboard” reveals missing metrics for over two-thirds of the programs, no advancements for about half of the initiatives and a major decrease in services badly needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And there’s only six months worth of data for the nearly five-year-old program.

“The dashboard currently has data for the first two quarters of Fiscal Year 2020 because we published and began gathering data on outcome measures at the beginning of FY20,” ThriveNYC External Affairs Director Nicole Torres told The Post.

“More data will be added in coming months,” she said.

“The dashboard includes maps of service locations for all ThriveNYC programs, all of which are new in the last five years — that’s how we have ‘changed the landscape of mental health,’” she added.

The site does show that serious racial inequities persist nearly five years after McCray launched ThriveNYC in November 2015.

One graph plots how the poorest neighborhoods have double the amount of psychiatric hospitalizations compared to wealthier sections of the city despite Thrive’s $220 million annual budget that focuses on helping the neediest New Yorkers.

“Normally, we could articulate how Thrive has failed us by anecdotal evidence or the umber of mentally ill on our streets,” said Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).

“At least now, we can quantify just how much success has evaded this expensive program,” Borelli said.

Placeholders like “coming in summer 2020” filled up the spaces where data should have been in 23 of the 31 programs — even though it’s halfway through the summer.

Several programs showed a decrease in the number of people served or the percentage of people who say they were helped between the last three months of 2019 and the first three months of 2020 including mental health services for veterans.

For example, ThriveNYC connected 2,593 veterans to services during the first quarter, but just 736 former military members got help during the second quarter. The percentage of vets who sought services and got them also declined from 83 percent to 74 percent during that same period.

Torres said engagement numbers were higher during the first quarter because of a special outreach program to enroll veterans in reduced-cost Metrocards.

One of ThriveNYC’s signature programs, the mental health hotline NYC Well, saw 6,500 fewer callers during the first three months of this year that includes the start of the pandemic than the last part of 2019.

The percentage of people who said they were satisfied with the service also declined from 91 percent to 77 percent.

“There is some normal variation quarter-to-quarter in calls to NYC Well,” Torres said. “The helpline is still on track to meet its annual target.”

A second councilman told The Post the new website is a testament to the program’s missteps, rather than achievements.

“If this is what Chirlane and her co-mayor husband are calling a success, then they need to seek some counseling of their own,” quipped Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens).

“This new site highlights the inequities in access to mental health care, clearly showing that Thrive has failed to improve the situation with five years and a billion dollars to work with.

“New Yorkers are sick and tired of their Marxist spin where their politburo can do no wrong. It’s time for them to pack up their tired ThriveNYC act and try to sell it somewhere else,” Holden said.