New York City’s new Democratic Socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani just made a devastating promise to New York taxpayers: he will immediately stop homeless encampment sweeps. The first major policy announced by the far-left mayor-elect will prioritize enabling chaos over public safety.
Mamdani vowed to discontinue a crucial cleanup priority enacted by outgoing Mayor Eric Adams. Adams had attempted to clear out the “makeshift, unsafe houses” that have plagued the city.
The promise to end the sweeps comes despite city officials receiving more than 45,000 complaints about homeless encampments so far this year. Mamdani offered zero specifics on how he will address the flood of complaints or the public safety disaster.
Mamdani argued that the sweeps are pointless because they fail to connect “homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need.” He claimed the massive spike in street homelessness is not natural, but “a reflection of a political choice being made.”
The sheer number of homeless people has skyrocketed in recent years. The population has nearly doubled in just two years, climbing from 45,343 people in city shelters in January 2022 to almost 90,000 two years later. This massive increase is largely driven by the influx of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
Current city policy urges residents to “report homeless people who have established encampments on public property.” Mamdani did not specify if he would remove the city’s online complaint portal.
The Democrat-controlled City Hall under Adams pushed back on critics, saying that the cleanups were “indisputably successful” in connecting over 500 New Yorkers to stable housing. City Hall said, “New York City continues to have the lowest rate of unsheltered homelessness of any major city in the nation.”
The real evidence comes from an audit by City Comptroller Brad Lander. The audit found that only a small percentage of those removed from makeshift housing actually accepted the city’s offer of temporary shelter.
Mamdani cruised to a landslide victory largely due to his focus on housing and affordability. His promises included freezing rents in some buildings and using taxpayer money to fully subsidize tuition at the City University of New York.