Opinion: Mamdani makes the right choice, not the easy one, on ending homeless encampment sweeps

When tragedies hit, we expect answers. We want to know why the tragedy happened, who’s to blame, what could have been done to prevent it. Over the course of the recent brutal cold spell that hit New York City, 18 people died out on the streets – at least 13 of them for reasons related to hypothermia – in what is categorically a tragedy. This tragedy has also been cast by the press as one of the first real tests of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new administration. And when tragedies become politicized, the facts frequently become collateral damage.

The question of why so many people died is better understood by looking at why so many people in New York City sleep unsheltered in the first place. Over the last four years, former Mayor Eric Adams responded to the homelessness crisis with a series of high-profile sweeps of encampments that failed to move a single New Yorker into permanent housing from January 2024 to June 2025 and eroded any goodwill earned with the homeless population. These sweeps failed on multiple levels. First, they were glaringly inhumane – many unhoused New Yorkers lost the few possessions they had, and the process undermined their trust in city services. They were also ineffective – they served only to remove people from sight – and the Adams administration released little to no data about whether the people targeted in these sweeps were connected to housing or had better long-term outcomes.

Some have asserted that these recent tragic deaths from the cold would not have occurred had Mamdani continued the policy of encampment sweeps. But as there is no evidence that any of those who perished from the cold were sleeping in encampments or were individuals who otherwise would have been subject to sweeps, those assertions seem little more than opportunistic attempts to get the city to return to an ineffective and inhumane policy. We fully support the mayor’s decision to end encampment sweeps.

Following four years of failed leadership and cruel policy toward the unhoused under the Adams administration, homeless New Yorkers are too often staying on the street instead of seeking shelter, because the city has failed them time and time again. The work of ending homelessness cannot be accomplished without trust. The Coalition for the Homeless brought the litigation that established the legal right to shelter in New York and continues to serve as the independent monitor of the shelter system. Win is the largest provider of shelters for homeless families in New York. One thing we can say with certainty is that you cannot force somebody to shelter. 

Before individuals can be effectively offered shelter, they must be met where they are with supportive resources. During the recent Enhanced Code Blue, Mamdani issued new emergency protocols, correctly increasing canvasser patrols to identify individuals in need while commendably adding warming centers, warming buses and more low-barrier shelter beds and taking many other proactive steps to bring people inside to safety. While coordination with canvassers and first-responders must always be improved, this stepped-up approach to identifying and assisting at-risk New Yorkers and connecting them with more ways to come inside is the right move and shows far more responsiveness and nimbleness than previous administrations. We hope it is a sign of more progress to come. 

Saving lives is the first priority, and while we vehemently opposed Adams’ dramatically increased use of involuntary hospitalizations as a means of removing homeless New Yorkers from public spaces, involuntary hospitalizations for those in imminent danger to themselves or others must sometimes be used as an absolute last resort strategy. We must make every effort to provide what unhoused New Yorkers tell us they want and need to feel safe accepting shelter and services. The city should continue to fast-track more low-barrier Safe Haven beds to expand critically needed capacity with resources to help individuals rapidly find stable and permanent housing.

Beyond immediate efforts to help unsheltered homeless New Yorkers find safety, we must invest in solutions that move us closer to ending the homelessness crisis altogether. The mayor can take a critical step toward ending this epidemic today by implementing codified expansions to the CityFHEPS housing voucher program, one of the most powerful tools we have for keeping families housed and helping unhoused families move into permanent housing. Tripling the City’s affordable, rent-stabilized housing stock – one of Mamdani’s campaign promises – would similarly go a long way to ensuring all New Yorkers are housed safely, humanely and permanently. 

Furthermore, Mamdani could replicate the De Blasio administration’s successful program that brought chronic homelessness among veterans to functionally zero by immediately moving 2,000 of the hardest-to-serve unsheltered New Yorkers into empty supportive housing units – of which there is currently an adequate stock – and then providing mental health care services to those individuals. It worked once; it can work again.

When confronted with a crisis, we have a choice between right and easy. In the face of criticism, the mayor has made the difficult but right decision to reject ineffective and cruel policies that do nothing to actually help homeless New Yorkers in favor of the more challenging but correct approaches. He has embraced the uphill climb – one that entails rebuilding years of eroded trust and investing in housing-first solutions to move New Yorkers into stable, permanent homes. We look forward to working with the new administration to fully realize this promise so that we can all live in a city in which every New Yorker has the safety and dignity of a home.