In an early show of his leftist bona fides, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered police and sanitation workers to stop dismantling the city’s homeless encampments. Now that 18 people have died on the streets amid record cold temperatures, Mamdani is reversing course.
The mayor is expected to reinstate homeless encampment sweeps — which were standard under his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams — as early as Wednesday, according to the New York Post. It’s a major reversal for Mamdani, who claimed that the city’s primary responsibility was “connecting [homeless] New Yorkers to housing.”
New York’s Department of Homeless Services will lead encampment sweeps by issuing notices to homeless individuals to clear their encampments within one week. During that period, homeless outreach workers will make repeated visits to connect individuals with shelters and supportive services.
Curtis Sliwa, the leader of New York’s Guardian Angels, a volunteer organization that conducts homeless outreach, told The Daily Wire that homeless individuals are reluctant to enter shelters for a number of reasons.
“First off, they’re not in control of their mental faculties,” Sliwa said. “Number two, they fear going into a shelter where they’re going to be preyed upon, where what few, few items that they may have will be stolen from them, where they can be sexually abused and physically harassed, and just again turned into a human piñata.”
Sliwa also said many individuals who are struggling with addiction resist shelter rules, including a 10 p.m. curfew. Some, he said, believe they are better off in a jail cell than in a shelter.
Before reversing his stance on encampment sweeps, Mamdani converted city buses into temporary warming centers during the cold streak. However, the initiative drew criticism after reports surfaced that the warming buses were difficult to locate. Mamdani took responsibility for the communication failures. “I think at the end of the day, that is the responsibility that I have as a mayor,” Mamdani said. “It’s never a moment to pass the buck to anyone else.”
Some of the buses, which had 40 seats, were reportedly not operating at full capacity. Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney who leads a volunteer group called the Street Homeless Advocacy Project, blamed inadequate signage. “As the cliché goes,” he said, “Sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” In an attempt to address the problem, Mamdani’s team committed to additional signage in more than ten languages.
With the homeless on the streets and not in shelters or warming buses, New York City has received more than 3,300 complaints about encampments, according to 311 data.
Mamdani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the encampment sweeps are a winter-only effort or a lasting policy change.