New York City took a concrete step toward closing Rikers Island on Tuesday, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the opening of a 104-bed therapeutic housing unit at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue — moving the city’s most medically vulnerable detainees out of the troubled jail complex and into a hospital setting for the first time.
The announcement, made at a press conference on the Bellevue campus in Kips Bay, carries both immediate health policy weight and long-term political significance. Rikers Island is legally required to close by August 31, 2027. The city remains far from meeting its legal deadline to shut the troubled jail complex, and Mamdani, approaching his 100th day in office, used the opening to demonstrate that his administration will pursue that goal through action rather than planning documents alone.
What the Unit Provides
The 104-bed unit will serve people in custody with complex medical needs by transferring the most clinically vulnerable detainees from Rikers Island into a therapeutic setting with closer access to specialty care. It is the first of three planned Outposted Therapeutic Housing Units across the city.
Located on the Bellevue hospital campus, the unit provides direct access to a full range of specialty services, including oncology, cardiology and neurology. Correctional Health Services clinicians will deliver care on-site, with enhanced monitoring and support in a therapeutic environment designed to improve health outcomes.
The unit will serve detainees with complex conditions, including cancer and congestive heart failure, who do not require full hospitalization but face heightened risks in traditional jail facilities.
The physical environment inside the Bellevue unit reflects a deliberate departure from the conditions on Rikers. Open dorm-style rooms with hospital beds are filled with natural light, with partitions providing some privacy. Murals of nature and streetscapes line the walls to create a calmer environment. The unit also includes private rooms for patients with both mental health diagnoses and chronic medical conditions. There is also a physical therapy room, outdoor recreation space and specialty services, including ophthalmology.
The Scale of the Problem at Rikers
The opening of the Bellevue unit comes against a backdrop of chronic institutional failure at the island jail. During a press conference, Mamdani described Rikers as a “de facto mental health facility” with conditions he called calamitous and unsafe. He cited the recent deaths of two Rikers detainees due to medical complications and stressed those deaths were “not isolated incidents,” noting more than 100 people have died on the island since 2015.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams called the opening “a long overdue step toward aligning our justice system with basic human dignity,” saying people on Rikers with serious health conditions have had to endure “hours-long transfers just to access routine care.” Moving specialty care directly into a hospital setting eliminates that transfer burden entirely for the detainees who need it most.
The total jail population at Rikers Island surpassed 7,000 in March 2025, further straining the deteriorating prison. The surge in population since the pandemic has created ongoing tension between the stated goal of closure and the practical reality of a system under pressure.
A Project Seven Years in the Making
The project was first unveiled in 2019 with a planned 2022 opening, fell years behind schedule, and has now spanned three mayoral administrations. Construction records indicate the delays were driven in part by repeated requests from jail officials to modify the design to better protect correction officers.
The 104-bed Department of Correction unit nearly doubled in cost, with its price tag climbing from $130 million to $241 million. That works out to more than $2 million per bed — a figure that reflects both the complexity of building a medical facility inside a historic hospital campus and the cost of years of delayed construction.
The project was substantially completed in January 2025 but did not open for 14 months. Staffing was the final obstacle: the Department of Correction needed to hire roughly 130 to 140 positions to operate the facility as a standalone unit. Mamdani revealed that more than 400 applications were submitted for those positions — a signal that corrections officers are interested in working in the new therapeutic environment.
What Closes as Bellevue Opens
The Bellevue unit’s opening triggers a significant change on Rikers itself. The mayor said roughly 100 incarcerated people would begin moving into the Bellevue unit on Wednesday, a shift he said would allow the city to close the North Infirmary Command on Rikers and transfer it to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in June.
The infirmary on Rikers Island — a converted garage once used to repair Department of Correction vehicles — is set to close after decades in operation. The North Infirmary Command, built in 1932, is the oldest medical facility on the island. Its closure ends a chapter of jail medicine that was defined by its physical limitations as much as by its institutional failures.
The Mamdani administration will also open additional Outposted Therapeutic Housing Units at NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull and North Central Bronx, with 144 and 92 beds respectively. Those sites will primarily serve patients with significant mental health needs, further expanding access to care and advancing the city’s plan to close Rikers Island.
The 2027 Deadline and What It Means
Mamdani was direct about the gap between where the city is and where it needs to be. He acknowledged how far the city remains from the original timetable for shutting Rikers, saying the previous administration’s inaction has made the 2027 deadline “practically impossible” to meet and that fulfilling the city council’s 2019 vote would require “a whole of government approach.”
The legal deadline of August 31, 2027 was set by the city council when it approved the borough-based jail plan — a system that would replace Rikers with four smaller facilities, one in each of the four most populous boroughs. That plan has faced its own delays, cost increases, and community opposition. The Bellevue unit does not resolve those challenges, but it demonstrates a model of decarceration that city officials can point to as functional and operational.
The Bellevue site represents a fundamental shift in how New York City delivers care to incarcerated people — moving away from a system defined by delays toward one rooted in dignity, access and prevention, according to the administration’s press release. Whether that shift can scale fast enough to meet an August 2027 deadline remains the central question for everyone watching.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Medical and legal information referenced reflects publicly available government announcements and news reporting.
