Plenty of people on Rikers was let go in 2020 because of Covid, overcrowding, and bail reform issues. Then more bail reform issues of 2021.
NYC’s worst 2021 cases stem from shaky bail reform law
They have to do a better job at examining who should be held and who should not be held.
The mentally ill/homeless people problem is a complex issue has been going on for years, and it got worse during the pandemic. The government as a whole needs to do a better job, because the problem is not just in NYC, but in other large cities as well. The shelters, jails, mental institutes, hospitals, rehabilitation places and programs, etc all need to be better. It's not just about the number of the resources available, it is about the quality of those resources as well. Most of these places are horrible, and speaking from experience the mental wards at hospitals around NYC suck. They just throw medicine at patients, and treat them like sub-humans.