{"id":138294,"date":"2026-02-19T02:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138294\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:03:08","slug":"mamdani-finally-sees-sense-on-homeless-encampments-pray-this-becomes-a-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138294\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani finally sees sense on homeless encampments \u2014 pray this becomes a TREND"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letting homeless camps fester is toxic to city neighborhoods and unsafe for the \u201ccampers,\u201d so let\u2019s all cheer Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s decision to back off<\/a> his ban on \u201cencampment sweeps.\u201d<\/p>\n

And more power to him if he can indeed have his sweeps result in \u201cbetter outcomes\u201d<\/a> than the last mayor\u2019s.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re skeptical of that: Mamdani certainly hasn\u2019t rethought the larger assumptions of New York City\u2019s homeless-industrial complex; he tapped a core architect of that system, Steven Banks, to run the city\u2019s Law Department.<\/p>\n

And his sketch of what\u2019ll be different looks thin: \u201cWhereas previously, a homeless New Yorker might have only two points of interaction with city government, the first day they\u2019re served a notice, and the seventh day when that notice comes to an end, our administration will meet those homeless New Yorkers every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the city\u2019s to pull that off \u2014 when Mamdani\u2019s (not at all fully funded) preliminary budget plan would add just 60 outreach workers to the Department of Homeless Services\u2019 2,000-strong staff \u2014 is far from obvious.<\/p>\n

But at least the mayor has retreated from his ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d like to think that The Post\u2019s regular hectoring<\/a> in both columns<\/a> and editorials<\/a> had something to do with it, but we were simply expressing the horror that most New Yorkers felt \u2014 including eminently progressive Queens Beep Donovan Richards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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For the record: We still believe the feds should investigate<\/a> how the decisions got made before Mamdani\u2019s reversal, and it\u2019s important to realize that leaving people on the street even led to the deaths of some homeless who already had the permanent shelter<\/a> that the mayor considers part of the \u201cbetter outcomes\u201d he means to deliver.<\/p>\n

Yet the bottom line remains the same: The mayor has put true compassion and simple common sense ahead of ideology, greatly disappointing the professional \u201cadvocate\u201d class.<\/p>\n

If he does this more often (cross your fingers!), it\u2019ll be a wonderful trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letting homeless camps fester is toxic to city neighborhoods and unsafe for the \u201ccampers,\u201d so let\u2019s all cheer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[9467,304,32941,2000,75,84,83,9,24,63,299,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-138294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-department-of-homeless-services","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-homeless-encampments","11":"tag-homelessness","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-manhattan-headlines","14":"tag-manhattan-news","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}