New York City Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city will resume clearing homeless encampments while taking a more humane approach.Days after taking office last month, Mamdani paused the previous mayor’s policy for clearing homeless encampments, arguing that it did not do enough to get people into housing, according to the Associated Press.
Mamdani on Wednesday said that his new approach will be more successful, as it will be led by the city’s homeless services department, rather than the police, and involves days of sustained outreach.
“That is something that I believe will yield far better results,” Mamdani said at an unrelated news conference.
The mayor’s office said that the city will first post a notice that the homeless encampment will be cleared, then send homeless department outreach workers every day for a week to guide people into social services.
On the seventh day, city sanitation workers would then dismantle the encampment with the hope that people would have cleared out of the area. A spokesperson said that police officers would be present as observers.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin called Mamdani’s move “an important step forward.”
“Allowing New Yorkers to stay on the street during extreme weather is inhumane,” Menin said in a statement, adding that after council oversight hearings, “it was clear that the City needed to take a closer look at how this policy was being implemented. Protecting lives must remain our top priority.”
Mamdani’s decision came as at least 19 people have died outside in the city over several days of severely cold temperatures. The mayor’s office said that there is no evidence that anyone who died had been living in encampments, but the office conducted an aggressive campaign to coax homeless people into new shelters, heated buses, and warming centers.
Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams had touted sweeps of homeless encampments as a centerpiece of his efforts to restore order to the city, which were led by police and sanitation crews.
However, the efforts drew protests from homeless advocacy groups. Also, while most homeless encampment sites were not re-established, only a fraction of people targeted in the sweeps accepted temporary shelter.
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