NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani resumes clearing of homeless encampments

Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced Wednesday that New York Metropolis will resume clearing homeless encampments after pausing the coverage for a couple of weeks.

Mamdani paused the coverage in January, arguing that it didn’t do sufficient to get folks into housing. The Democrat mentioned his new initiative can be led by the Division of Homeless Companies moderately than the police and can contain sustained outreach, which he mentioned will result in higher outcomes.

“We’ll meet them trying to join them with shelter, trying to join them with providers, trying to join them with a metropolis that desires them to be sheltered and indoors and heat and secure. And that’s one thing that I imagine will yield much better outcomes, as a result of it hasn’t even been the driving directive of those insurance policies earlier than,” Mamdani mentioned throughout an unrelated information convention.

Earlier than taking workplace in December, Mamdani criticized how Mayor Eric Adams approached town’s homeless encampments, and he formally paused his predecessor’s coverage on Jan. 5.

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

“I decided with my workforce to place a pause on that prior administration’s coverage as we began to develop our personal coverage that will generate much better outcomes for town,” he mentioned.

Below the brand new method, town will first submit a discover {that a} homeless encampment can be cleared after which ship homeless division outreach employees there day by day for every week to information folks into social providers.

On the seventh day, sanitation employees will dismantle the encampment, with the expectation that people have vacated the world.

Mamdani mentioned that relentless outreach would assist join with homeless New Yorkers whose “first response is likely to be that of skepticism.”

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Former Mayor Eric Adams made clearing homeless encampments a centerpiece of his administration, a coverage New York Metropolis is now resuming underneath Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Related Press)

“Their second response is likely to be that of wariness, given their prior experiences inside the shelter system,” he mentioned. “However their third, their fourth, their fifth or sixth response could also be one in every of curiosity in the potential of shelter providers, programing help, supportive housing.”

David Giffen, government director of the Coalition for the Homeless, mentioned his group was “blindsided” by Mamdani’s announcement, calling it a “political response” that will do little to assist the homeless inhabitants, in response to the Related Press.

Giffen mentioned the brand new method would damage belief between town’s outreach employees and unsheltered residents, and will probably result in extra deaths throughout excessive climate occasions.

“When a metropolis employee reveals up and throws out all of your belongings, you’re not going to belief that particular person the subsequent time they present up providing you a spot to sleep inside,” Giffen mentioned.

Not less than 19 folks have died exterior throughout a chronic chilly stretch within the metropolis, elevating considerations in regards to the metropolis’s response.

The mayor’s workplace mentioned there isn’t any proof that anybody who died was residing in encampments, and it has inspired homeless folks to get to new shelters, heated buses and warming facilities.

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New York Metropolis will as soon as once more clear homeless encampments underneath a revised coverage introduced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)

Fox Information Digital reached out to Mamdani’s workplace for remark.

The Related Press contributed to this report.