Thrive Web page a far site worse than it looks

It’s all sizzle and no steak. First Lady Chirlane McCray’s ThriveNYC unveiled a splashy new Web site Monday purporting to show the $1.25 billion program has “dramatically improved the landscape of mental-health services in New York City over the last five years.”

But a closer look at geocoded maps and colorful bar graphs on the “Data Dashboard” reveals missing metrics for more than two-thirds of the programs, no advancements for about half of the initiatives and a major decrease in services badly needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And there’s only six months worth of data for the nearly 5-year-old initiative.

“The dashboard currently has data for the first two quarters of fiscal year 2020 because we published and began gathering data on outcome measures at the beginning of FY20,” ThriveNYC external-affairs director Nicole Torres told The Post. More data will be added in coming months.

“The dashboard includes maps of service locations for all ThriveNYC programs, all of which are new in the last five years — that’s how we have ‘changed the landscape of mental health,’ ” Torres added.

The site does show that serious racial inequities persist years after McCray launched ThriveNYC in November 2015.

One graph plots how the poorest neighborhoods have double the

amount of psychiatric hospitalizations compared with wealthier sections of the city, despite Thrive’s $220 million annual budget, which focuses on helping the neediest New Yorkers.

“Normally, we could articulate how Thrive has failed us by anecdotal evidence or the number of mentally ill on our streets,” said Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).

“At least now, we can quantify just how much success has evaded this expensive program.”.

Placeholders like “coming in summer 2020” filled up the spaces where data should have been in 23 of the 31 programs, although the summer is already half over.

One of ThriveNYC’s signature programs, the mental-health hotline NYC Well, saw 6,500 fewer callers during the first three months of this year, which include the start of the pandemic, than in the last part of 2019.

“If this is what Chirlane and her comayor husband are calling a success, then they need to seek some counseling of their own,” said Councilman Robert Holden (R-Queens). “This new site highlights the inequities in access to mental-health care, clearly showing that Thrive has failed to improve the situation with five years and a billion dollars to work with.

“New Yorkers are sick and tired of their Marxist spin where their politburo can do no wrong. It’s time for them to pack up their tired ThriveNYC act and try to sell it somewhere else,” Holden said.

If this is what Chirlane (left) her co-mayor are calling success, then they to seek some counseling of their own. — Queens Councilman Robert Holden