By Maya Kaufman
The City Council unanimously passed legislation Thursday to require more comprehensive and frequent data reporting on the B-HEARD initiative, which sends specially trained emergency medics and social workers to respond to select 911 calls about a mental health crisis.
The bill would require relevant city agencies to share aggregate data every six months on mental health-related 911 calls and B-HEARD dispatches, in addition to the program’s average response time and demographic information of the individuals in crisis.
Its effective date is June 1, 2027.
“New Yorkers deserve a clear understanding of how the city responds to mental health emergencies,” City Council Member Lynn Schulman, who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement to POLITICO.
The Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health already publishes some data on B-HEARD responses, but its public reports are inconsistent and out of date.
The most recent available data is from fiscal 2024-2025 and shows B-HEARD teams responded to more than 10,000 calls, or roughly 22 percent of all mental health-related 911 calls in that timeframe. Average response time isn’t included in the dataset.
Among approximately 3,400 people who received a behavioral health assessment from a B-HEARD team, 60 percent were taken to a hospital, according to the fiscal 2025 data.
“My legislation requires the city to regularly report and publish comprehensive data on how 911 mental health emergency calls are handled, including how responses are deployed and their outcomes,” Schulman added in the statement. “That information will allow us to evaluate what is working, identify gaps, and ensure New Yorkers in crisis receive the care they need.”
A prior version of the bill called for much more extensive and granular data about mental health calls, prompting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to voice privacy concerns during a March hearing.
The amended version approved Thursday calls for aggregated data rather than call-by-call data and changed the reporting schedule from quarterly to semiannually. It also includes an explicit privacy protection.
A City Hall spokesperson said the administration supports the amended bill.