Mamdani to end sweeps of New York City homeless encampments
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is vowing to suspend sweeps of homeless encampments, reversing a policy by his predecessor that eliminated more than 4,000 camps but moved few — if any — unhoused people into permanent shelters. The administration of outgoing Mayor Eric Adams spent more than $6 million since last year trying to get rid of encampments across New York, local news site The City reported.
Officials created a multi-agency task force consisting of police officers and employees from the city’s homeless services office and the parks and sanitation departments.
While the task force carried out more than 4,100 sweeps, no homeless people were placed in permanent shelters through vouchers, transfers to homeless support housing or direct placements, according to The City, which cited government records.
WNYC’s The Gothamist reported earlier this year that the city removed 3,500 people from such encampments. However, just 114 were placed in shelters.
At a news conference Thursday, Mamdani — who takes office Jan. 1 — said he would not continue the sweeps.
“If you are not connecting homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need, then you cannot deem anything you’re doing to be a success,” Mamdani said.
Reaction from advocates
Homeless advocates applauded the move. Some slept in the street in advance of the Mamdani news conference, including Marcus Moore.
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Zohran Mamdani will take the oath of office on Jan. 1, 2026 and become New York’s 111th mayor.
“I’m anticipating that it’s a new day also for homeless New Yorkers, because sweeping people off the street, throwing away the medical [prescriptions] and all that sort of stuff, does not work,” Moore said.
Mamdani, who won the mayoral election in November, has said he would shift the issue of homelessness away from policing into a still-yet-to-be-formed Department of Community Safety.
“We are going to take an approach that understands its mission is connecting those New Yorkers to housing,” he said recently, “whether it’s supportive housing, whether it’s rental housing, whatever kind of housing it is.”
He did not explain how his administration will address tens of thousands of complaints about the encampments and their locations.
Background
Adams, who is leaving the mayor’s office after a single term, previously called the tent cities “unsafe, unacceptable, inhumane houses” and said that there was nothing dignified about people living in cardboard boxes on the streets near highways, in parks and near schools.
Months later, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander conducted an audit of the encampment cleanup program. It found that the city’s homeless services agency “stressed the challenges inherent in getting the street homeless to accept temporary shelter.” The agency also referred to mental health and substance abuse issues that make homeless people living on the street more resistant to accepting temporary shelter.
“Given this,” the audit concluded, “and given the limited success achieved during cleanups, [the agency] should seriously re-assess its current approaches to this problem.”
The Adams administration disputed the findings, claiming the clean-up initiative was successful.
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