Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson.

Thanks for joining us for the 10 Blocks podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

Hello, I'm Howard Hughes. City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

Hello, I'm Howard Hussig, Vice President for Research and Publications here at the Manhattan Institute.

Today, our topic is serious mental illness. Not a happy topic, but one of the most important ones facing American cities and American life generally.

I'm joined by two close associates of the Manhattan Institute, one, a senior fellow here,

Stephen I, who has just written a major article for City Journal on Thrive, New York,

a plan developed by Mayor de Blasio here in New York to deal with mental health, and a major report

on Kendra's Law, which deals with assisted outpatient treatment for those suffering from

severe mental illness. And along with Stephen, DJ Jaffe, the author of an important new book,

Insane Consequences, How the Mental Health

Industry Fails the Mentally Ill. I'd like to begin with you, DJ, and set the big picture,

and then we're going to move into New York as kind of a case study for what goes on at the local level.

You talk about the severely mentally ill, and you distinguish

that diagnosis, if you will, from problems with mental health. Why do you think that's

an important distinction? Well, 100% of the population can have their mental health improve,

all of us. 18% have something that's in the

diagnostic and statistical manual that's mainly minor depression, anxiety, ADHD, but there

are 4% with a serious and persistent mental illness that dramatically affects their ability

to survive and to provide for themselves. And it is these individuals who

need help the most and also create consequences for the community. It is the most seriously

mentally ill who wind up homeless, hospitalized, arrested, incarcerated, and sometimes violent.

...