NY eyes crackdown on organized shoplifting: 5 takeaways from Hochul's 2024 agenda

Gov. Kathy Hochul laid out a 2024 agenda for New York Tuesday that includes plans to combat rising store thefts, improve mental health care and make another attempt to boost the state's housing supply.

For the second year in a row, Hochul made bolstering New York's mental-health system a top priority for her State of the State speech, her third since taking office in 2021. She called mental illness "the defining challenge of our times," citing the public safety problems that stem from it and the harmful effects of social media on teens.

"Too often the people involved in violent instances on our streets or our subways are victims themselves, victims of a system that failed to provide them the treatment they need," she said. "High-quality care must be widely available, accessible and affordable."

Her hour-long address in Albany and the 174-page briefing book that accompanied it strode through a litany of 204 goals for state government services and policies, but only in rough form. Details are set to be fleshed out in the budget proposal she delivers to state lawmakers next week.

Here are five key takeaways from Hochul's speech:

Target shoplifting

Hochul proposed to form a special State Police unit and offer funding to prosecutor's offices to combat retail theft, especially the kind being carried out by organized crime rings.

She also suggested creating a tax credit for store owners to help cover the cost of security measures to thwart thieves, and proposed stronger criminal penalties for assaults against store workers.

Hochul lamented a run of “brazen” store thefts in which workers are menaced and owners are left to replace “broken windows and stolen goods,” calling it “a breakdown of the social order.”

“Let’s get it done,” she said. “Let’s back our businesses and the workers with the full force of the law, and punish those who think they can break the rules with impunity.”

A second crack at a NY housing boost

Hochul laid out relatively modest plans to boost the state's housing supply after state lawmakers blocked her more ambitious proposals last year. Her efforts to set housing growth mandates for every community and demand dense zoning around train stations hit a wall of resistance in suburban areas.

This year, she is largely seeking to revive other ideas that stalled and expand steps she took on her own last year, without needing legislative approval.

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One of those actions she took was to start giving communities that meet growth targets a better shot at winning state grants. This year, she wants to go further by making compliance with those targets a requirement in order to qualify for grants — not merely an advantage in competing for state funding.

Hochul also said her order for state agencies to search for buildable, state-owned land had turned up enough property to build 15,000 homes. She plans to budget $500 million in state funding to prepare that land for housing development.

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She put housing at the heart of New York's "affordability crisis," saying short supply has driven up rents and prices and helped fuel an exodus of residents to other states, including neighbors where homes have increased more quickly, she said.

"Until we address our housing shortage, many of our neighbors will continue to struggle financially," Hochul said.

She conceded her modest plans were a "good start" but not enough to fix the crisis.

"So let's be honest with New Yorkers," she said. "The only thing that will solve this problem is building hundreds and hundreds of thousands of homes."

Expand mental health response, services

Hochul's latest plans to expand mental health care services include:

• Opening 200 additional psychiatric hospital beds

• Coordinating law enforcement and mental health personnel to monitor those with mental illness who are shuttled between shelters, hospitals, jails and prisons

• Creating more mental-health courts to divert the mentally ill from the criminal justice system.

Hochul recalled a harrowing incident last month at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan in which two young tourists were stabbed by a man who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and who had history of terrorizing family members.

"He should have received help long ago," she said. "We can no longer wait for someone to lash out and hurt someone before we take action, because by then it’s already too late."

Paid leave for prenatal care

Hochul hopes to improve care for pregnant women to bring down maternal and infant mortality rates, particularly in communities of color with elevated levels. Her plans include expanding the state's paid family leave program to include up to 40 hours of leave for prenatal care visits — a policy that she said no other state has, putting New York in the vanguard.

Medicaid funding to help strapped hospitals, health workforce

Many of Hochul’s plans for improving New York’s historically low ratings for health care quality and safety involve overhauling Medicaid programs.

Her strategy received a major boost Tuesday as federal regulators approved New York’s proposal for spending $7.5 billion through Medicaid over the next three years.

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Big chunks of the spending, which includes $6 billion in federal funds, will go to shoring up safety net hospitals that serve poor communities and addressing health care workforce shortages. Other plans aim to better fund programs focused on treating social determinants of health, which would help curb health inequality.

New York had initially requested $13.5 billion through the so-called New York Health Equity Reform waiver to the Medicaid program.

USA Today Network New York health reporter David Robinson contributed to this report.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NYS State of the State 2024: Five of Hochul's top priorities for NY