IT’S PERSONAL: The Queens borough president launched a free-counseling partnership with BetterHelp with a tweet: “My name is Donovan Richards and I am in therapy.” (Borough President’s Office)

QUEENS — In the 18 years he’s spent serving low-income New Yorkers and public-housing ​​residents, Bishop Mitchell Taylor has never heard as much about mental health as he’s hearing right now. 

He said it’s about time.

“In urban communities, we’ve had a lot of duress, but no counseling,” said Taylor, senior pastor at Center of Hope International church in Long Island City and also co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit Urban Upbound.

“We’ve been operating in this ecosystem, trying to connect the dots, without a very, very important component: someone that can help you with your mental health. And if you think people with money have problems with mental health, imagine what people who have no money have.”

“If you think people with money have problems with mental health, imagine what people who have no money have,” said Bishop Mitchell Taylor, CEO of Urban Upbound, one of the Queens nonprofits getting grants to provide free BetterHelp counseling. (Borough President’s Office)

Urban Upbound is one of the community-based organizations participating in a mental healthcare initiative announced by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.

Richards’s office is partnering with BetterHelp, an online therapy company that has teamed up with celebrities and a variety of organizations this year to make sessions available for free. In Queens, 10 nonprofits were chosen to help distribute $2 million worth of services to residents. 

The initiative is an attempt to shrink the gap between mental illness prevalence and use of therapy services. Nationwide, less than half of people with mental illness are treated, according to Mental Health America.

The Queens program can serve about 8,000 clients, with each receiving three free therapy sessions. Each nonprofit has been allocated $175,000 in online sessions to distribute and the borough president’s office is to distribute $250,000 in services. 

Demand for treatment of many mental health issues—such as anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder—spiked nationwide during the pandemic. Online providers like BetterHelp and TalkSpace said they saw dramatic gains in users when COVID-19 hit. Between January and April of 2021, BetterHelp app downloads grew by 60 percent. 

In Queens, stressed residents are “crying out like they’ve never cried out before,” said Deputy Borough President Ebony Young, who is leading the initiative. 

“I had a senior citizen come to me almost crying,” said Young, recalling how the woman told her, “Ebony, you need to help us with this, because I’ve got people in this age group who have gone from, ‘I’m kind of lonely at home’ to ‘I need help.’”

An important facet of mental health programming is de-stigmatizing therapy. As an African American woman, Young said, she grew up in a community where therapy was not generally accepted. That sentiment still lingers.

“It can be deemed sometimes that, if you go to therapy, you’re crazy, which is not the truth,” she said. “So how do we think about destigmatizing this? This is our opportunity to say, ‘Our borough president does therapy.’ Let’s normalize therapy.”

Helping the resistant

Sunnyside Community Services will help participants connect with the online therapy service. (Sonja Anderson)

Juana Zarzosa, a home caretaker who receives supplies from Sunnyside Community Services, one of the organizations enlisted to distribute BetterHelp services, said therapy is a necessity for those in her field.

“Sometimes it is very difficult, because each patient is different,” Zarzosa said. “And we have problems with the family too—many problems. It’s very stressful.”

Shyvonne Noboa, associate executive director for older adult services at Sunnyside Community Services, said older people have struggled with both mental health issues and difficulties receiving care.

“People were isolated before the pandemic, and the pandemic created and instilled a greater sense of isolation and fear,” Noboa said. “As we have older adults come back to our community center, they’re doing so cautiously. We have some that are ready to engage. And we have some that still are concerned, because of their health.”

During lockdown, Sunnyside Community Services ran support groups via phone calls as part of their geriatric mental health program. The staff tried Zoom, but many older adults had problems engaging with the technology.

Urban Upbound, located across the street from the Queensbridge Houses, will provide computer access to clients to therapy. (Anderson)

Staffers, already practiced in helping clients set up email accounts and programming personal devices at the center or on home visits, Noboa said, will extend that assistance to telehealth participants. Urban Upbound plans to provide private spaces and computers to those who need them to connect to therapy, Taylor said.

“It’s just as normal to gain access and treatment for mental health as it is for your physical health,” said Noboa. “If we keep that conversation flowing, my hope is that one day, everybody’s getting access for mental health.”

When attempting to provide services to those who resist therapy because of stigma, Young said small steps are key. Hence the free-trial format of this BetterHelp initiative.

“You jump in a pot of hot water, you’re scalding, right?” Young said. “You dip in little by little, you’re more apt to soak and have a great time in the bathtub. That’s what we’re doing here. We want to eventually get to soaking.”