NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani reverses course on homeless encampments after pausing clearings

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that New York City will resume clearing homeless encampments after pausing the policy for a few weeks.

Mamdani paused the policy in January, arguing that it did not do enough to get people into housing. The Democrat said his new initiative will be led by the Department of Homeless Services rather than the police and will involve sustained outreach, which he said will lead to better results.

“We will meet them looking to connect them with shelter, looking to connect them with services, looking to connect them with a city that wants them to be sheltered and indoors and warm and safe. And that is something that I believe will yield far better results, because it hasn’t even been the driving directive of these policies before,” Mamdani said during an unrelated news conference.

Before taking office in December, Mamdani criticized how Mayor Eric Adams approached the city’s homeless encampments, and he officially paused his predecessor’s policy on Jan. 5.

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Mamdani reiterated on Wednesday that he believes Adams’ policy was a “failure.”

“I made a decision with my team to put a pause on that prior administration’s policy as we started to develop our own policy that would generate far better outcomes for the city,” he said.

Under the new approach, the city will first post a notice that a homeless encampment will be cleared and then send homeless department outreach workers there daily for a week to guide people into social services.

On the seventh day, sanitation workers will dismantle the encampment, with the expectation that individuals have vacated the area.

Mamdani said that relentless outreach would help connect with homeless New Yorkers whose “first reaction might be that of skepticism.”

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“Their second reaction might be that of wariness, given their prior experiences within the shelter system,” he said. “But their third, their fourth, their fifth or sixth reaction may be one of interest in the possibility of shelter services, programing support, supportive housing.”

David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said his organization was “blindsided” by Mamdani’s announcement, calling it a “political response” that would do little to help the homeless population, according to the Associated Press.

Giffen said the new approach would hurt trust between the city’s outreach workers and unsheltered residents, and may potentially lead to more deaths during extreme weather events.

“When a city worker shows up and throws out all your belongings, you’re not going to trust that person the next time they show up offering you a place to sleep inside,” Giffen said.

At least 19 people have died outside during a prolonged cold stretch in the city, raising concerns about the city’s response.

The mayor’s office said there is no evidence that anyone who died was living in encampments, and it has encouraged homeless people to get to new shelters, heated buses and warming centers.