New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is reversing a campaign promise and reinstating homeless encampment sweeps.
Just weeks ago, Mamdani said he was against it, even when CBS News New York showed him video of people in encampments during the bitter cold.
In changing his mind, however, Mamdani wants New Yorkers to know his encampment sweeps will be “unlike the prior administration.”
Mamdani touts “relentless outreach”
A homeless encampment on West 18th Street.
CBS News New York
Unlike having the NYPD do the sweeps, the Department of Homeless Services will be the lead agency. Instead of serving notice and giving encampment dwellers seven days to vacate, Mamdani said outreach workers will go there every day.
“The importance of this, as we saw over the course of this prolonged Code Blue, was that by having relentless outreach each and every day, you are able to connect with homeless New Yorkers for whom their first reaction might be that of skepticism,” Mamdani said.
The mayor was still against encampment sweeps nearly a month ago, when CBS News New York showed him pictures of homeless encampments where people were shivering in the dead of winter. That was also before the wave of frigid temperatures took the lives of several people living on the street.
“I’m disappointed to see the backpedaling”
Homeless advocates say they’re disappointed.
“Well, I’m disappointed to see the backpedaling of the mayor on this commitment to end encampment sweeps because encampment sweeps don’t really help people to come inside and to get the shelter services and, ultimately, the housing they need,” Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director David Giffen said.
“What’s really troubling to me is we’re barely a month into his administration, and already Mayor Mamdani has backtracked on two campaign promises he made to the homeless community,” Christine Quinn of Win NYC said.
Homeless advocates say they’re happy the NYPD is not the lead agency in the sweeps, but they’re not happy that there doesn’t seem to be a program to create the kind of permanent housing that’s necessary. Giffen said he wants the mayor to commit to building 60,000 units of housing for the homeless over the next five years. Such a program could cost billions, and so far an expense like that is not in the mayor’s preliminary budget.
“I might as well stay on the street”
On West 18th Street, a homeless man named Michael sleeps in a lean-to filled with spoiled milk, rotten food and lots of blankets to cope with the bitter cold. It’s part of a homeless encampment that stretches for almost half a block.
The question is how long he and the others will continue to live there now that the mayor says he wants to see the encampments removed.
Michael said the street is safer than a shelter.
“I don’t like being in there, you know? You’re talking to the robbers and stuff,” he said. “I might as well stay on the street and get robbed … I’d rather be on the street so that I feel more safe.”
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