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Alliance Alert: This landmark evaluation confirms what the Alliance for Rights and Recovery has been saying for decades: the key to recovery is not a court order, it is access to timely, high-quality, community-based services. The report makes clear that people receiving intensive services voluntarily achieved outcomes comparable to those under Kendra’s Law, demonstrating that it is Assertive Community Treatment, peer support, supportive housing, case management, transportation, and other recovery-oriented services that make the difference. Rather than continuing to expand reliance on coercive interventions, ���Ķ���vlog should invest in ensuring these services are readily available to everyone who needs them before a crisis occurs. By addressing the social determinants of health and expanding voluntary engagement, we can build a behavioral health system that promotes recovery, protects civil rights, and helps people remain safely in their communities.

This important discussion will continue at the Alliance for Rights and Recovery Annual Conference, where attendees will hear the latest updates on state behavioral health policy and program changes, including presentations from the Office of Mental Health. The conference will also feature a dedicated workshop on Kendra’s Law led by members of the research team that conducted this landmark evaluation, including Dr. Bevin Croft, offering a unique opportunity to hear directly from the experts about the study’s findings, recommendations, and what they mean for the future of ���Ķ���vlog’s mental health system.

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Hochul’s Mental Health Plan Takes Fire in State-Commissioned Report
By Ethan Geringer-Sameth | Crain’s Healthcare | August 4, 2026

���Ķ���vlog should prioritize voluntary outpatient mental health services over court-ordered treatment under Kendra’s Law, according to an independent study commissioned by the state.

The Office of Mental Health quietly posted the study on Kendra’s Law – a centerpiece of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mental health agenda – to its website after lawmakers required it as part of a condition for renewing the law in 2022. The findings take aim at a tool that Hochul has poured millions of state dollars into and expanded in law multiple times since taking office.

“The evidence suggests that (Assisted Outpatient Treatment’s) primary positive impact lies in facilitating access to services, but that AOT’s legal and procedural framework is associated with persistent concerns about fairness, voice, and agency across all phases of implementation,” the report says, referring to the court-ordered treatments.

The study, which was first reported by Politico, found that Kendra’s Law helped connect people to services but that court orders were coercive and often predetermined, particularly for people of color. It recommends the state strengthen voluntary services like intensive outreach, housing support and case management and ensure access is not contingent on a court order.

The study was conducted by the Human Services Research Institute and University of Pittsburgh, which received $1 million from the state. Investigators interviewed more than 200 people, including participants, family members, providers, judicial officers and Kendra’s Law administrators, while also analyzing administrative data collected by the Office of Mental Health.

The report said that the positive outcomes of both voluntary and involuntary programs came from the access they provided to intensive community services, which are limited. But despite being described as a last resort, the study found that AOT often occurred “under conditions that limit meaningful choice, including hospital discharge or criminal-legal pressure, with little discussion of less restrictive alternatives.”

The study also found that treatment plans were rarely contested and challenges unlikely to succeed. County health departs usually make the treatment order requests, which were approved by judges more than 95% of the time, according to state data.

According to the report, the model is fear-based with compliance largely maintained by the threat of removal to a hospital, which is rare. It found inconsistencies in the implementation of removal practices, with Black participants are 26% more likely to be taken to the hospital at least once. People who identified as White or Hispanic were 11% and 15% less likely to have been removed, respectively.

Kendra’s Law has been a key element of Hochul’s legislative agenda in multiple sessions, at times holding up negotiations to force changes to the law to make it easier to enact and maintain court orders. Earlier this month, Mental Health Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan touted an additional  to standardize the program statewide.

Office of Mental Health spokesman Justin Mason defended the program’s positive impacts and noted that Kendra’s Law was used in a small number of cases.

“This report illustrates how Assisted Outpatient Treatment is positively impacting the very outcomes it was designed to address –reducing hospitalizations and improving community safety,” he said. “We will continue to review the findings and recommendations to ensure this small but critical component of our state’s outpatient community-based care system continues fulfilling the key role it plays in our continuum of care.”

Roughly 4,300 people each year are under a court order, compared with 400,000 Medicaid recipients receiving outpatient mental health services, Mason said. Thirty-eight percent are Black and a majority have a history of hospitalization.

Sakeena Trice, a senior staff attorney for ���Ķ���vlog Lawyers for the Public Interest, which monitors the implementation of the law, said the findings indicate that the state should reevaluate its reliance on assisted outpatient treatment.

“Kendra’s Law prioritizes force over autonomy without proof that force works better,” she said. “���Ķ���vlog should stop expanding a coercive system and instead invest in the voluntary, community-based care this study shows people actually need.”