In 1987, a homeless woman named Joyce Brown was forcibly hospitalized by the City of New York. Brown had been seen on the streets urinating, defecating, running into traffic, and tearing apart dollar bills — and when offered food or shelter, she usually refused. With the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Brown challenged the city’s right to detain her.
Lucid, funny, and surprisingly reasonable, she convinced many — including the judge — that the government had overstepped. She said she relieved herself in the street because there were no bathrooms. She tore up money because she found the people who gave it to her condescending. She jaywalked because everyone in New York does that. She had mental health troubles, for sure. But she had her reasons for what she did, and she could certainly answer for herself.
Brown soon became a minor celebrity, appearing on 60 Minutes and The Phil Donahue Show as well as giving a talk at Harvard Law School. As her fame grew, her case became a cautionary tale for those attracted to forcible institutionalization as a necessary and humane tactic for addressing street homelessness. Such an approach would certainly sweep up people like Brown, which to many seemed more despotic than compassionate.
Nearly forty years later, we find ourselves in the midst of a homelessness crisis that has many revisiting the idea of involuntary hospitalization. Pointing specifically to the prevalence of mental illness and addiction among the chronically unhoused, politicians from California governor Gavin Newsom to New York mayor Eric Adams to President Donald Trump have advocated for legal reforms making it easier to forcibly institutionalize people.
Unsurprisingly, traditionally left-leaning advocates for the…
Auteur: Paul Schofield
