Jordan Neely Was on NYC’s List of ‘Top 50’ Mentally Ill Homeless People in Need of Urgent Help
The tragic death of Jordan Neely on a New York subway has shed light on the difficulty city officials and outreach groups faced getting him the treatment he needed.
Neely was on what outreach workers refer to as the “Top 50” list — a roster maintained by New York City of the homeless people living on the street most urgently in need of assistance and treatment. An unnamed employee of the Bowery Residents’ Committee, a nonprofit organization that does subway outreach for the city, told the New York Times that Neely had hundreds of encounters with social workers and was taken to hospitals numerous times, both voluntarily and involuntarily.
Neely also racked up more than three dozen arrests. Many of them were offenses like turnstile-jumping or trespassing. However, at least four were on charges of punching people, two in the subway system.
Neely’s aunt, Carolyn Neely, told the New York Post that doctors did not adequately treat him.
“As his aunt, as his blood, I was crying out for medical help for my nephew — but everything was about insurance,” she explained.
“Doctors knew his condition, he needed to be treated…He wasn’t a bad person.” she continued, adding that Neely was in and out of Bellevue Hospital.
The Intensive Mobile Treatment team, another street and subway outreach group, took him to Bellevue in March of 2020, where he was kept for a week. It was not clear what contact the group had with him after that.
“He just needed better help from doctors who did not give him help when I asked,” Neely’s aunt said. “I was really frustrated. I didn’t know what to do anymore.”
The Times reported that in November of 2021, Neely’s aggression peaked when he punched a 67-year-old woman in the street on the Lower East Side. He was charged with assault and spent 15 months in jail, according to the police, though his family told the Times that the stint was shorter. When he pleaded guilty in February of this year, he was to go to live at a treatment facility in the Bronx and stay clean for 15 months. In return, his felony conviction would be reduced.
Neely promised to take his medication and to avoid drugs, and not to leave the facility without permission, but abandoned the facility 13 days later. An arrest warrant was issued by Judge Ellen Biben. Outreach workers and officers who encountered him in the months until his death, unaware of the warrant, said they saw Neely’s condition spiral. Two weeks before his death, outreach worker saw him in Coney Island and noted that he was aggressive and incoherent. “He could be a harm to others or himself if left untreated,” the worker wrote, according to the Times.
Police sources told the Post that Neely sank into a deep depression after his stepfather brutally murdered his mom in 2007 and that was when he began crossing paths with the police.
Neely often stayed with his grandparents when he wasn’t on the streets.
James Berry, a neighbor, told the Post that “they wouldn’t let him inside sometimes at night because they were afraid of him. I never saw him violent myself, but I saw him sleeping in the hallway in front of the [grandparent’s] door a lot.”
“My wife would fix him a plate of food sometimes, and I’d give him a couple dollars,” said Berry. “There was something a little mentally off about him, but we all knew what happened to his mother. It’s a sad situation.”
“Jordan didn’t deserve to die. I hope some justice comes out of this situation,” Berry added.
