By Jan Ransom and Amy Julia Harris
New York City has poured tens of millions of dollars into a program to treat severely mentally ill people on the streets and in the subways for nearly a decade without ensuring that it was operating effectively, according to an audit made public on Wednesday by the city comptroller.
The program, known as intensive mobile treatment or I.M.T., was meant to help hundreds of the city’s most vulnerable residents by providing them with medication, psychiatric treatment and connections to housing and other services.