Mayor Zohran Mamdani is still refusing to clear homeless camps and forcibly remove people from the streets overnight despite a rising death toll and a fresh snap of deadly deep freeze bearing down on NYC this weekend — prompting pointed questions from elected officials.
“With freezing temperatures expected again this weekend, I am writing to ask: What measures will be in place to ensure every New Yorker is in a warm place. Specifically: Will outreach efforts be intensified, to ensure every homeless New Yorker is reached?” District 15 Council Member Oswald Feliz asked Mamdani in a letter viewed by The Post.
The National Weather Service has issued an extreme cold watch for the Big Apple from Saturday evening into Sunday afternoon, when an Arctic blast is expected to bring gusty winds and even more snow as temperatures remain below freezing.
“We’ve had extremely cold days already this year — but this is a little different because it’s being accompanied by a lot of wind. It’s going to feel below zero over the weekend … In some cases, it could feel 15 to 20 below zero with wind gusts of 40 or 50 mph,” Accuweather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines told The Post.
“If you’re not well protected, if you’re out there for more than half an hour, you’re going to be in trouble with frostbite and hyperthermia.”
At least 17 New Yorkers have died outside since Jan. 24 — 13 of them from hypothermia and three from overdoses, according to City Hall officials. One person’s cause of death was not immediately known.
“What changes will be implemented to prevent last week’s tragedy from repeating itself? If someone refuses assistance during freezing temperatures and remains outdoors, what steps will be taken to ensure they are not left in the cold?” Feliz wrote in his letter seeking additional clarity on the mayor’s plans.
Mamdani claimed none of the dead lost their lives at homeless encampments — which his administration has refused to clear despite prolonged life-threatening temperatures, a stark departure from virtually all of his predecessors.
Instead, he’s stuck to his guns that the city would only force homeless New Yorkers off the streets “as a last resort,” which doesn’t sit well with critics, including Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute.
“Before I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I think as this going on he really gets less and less the benefit of the doubt,” she told The Post of Mamdani’s reluctance to adjust the city’s tactics to match the reality on the ground.
“He knows this is coming and more deaths are coming unless he changes his approach.”
Instead of forcing their hand, Mamdani has renewed calls for homeless people to hole up at shelters as the city experienced a brutal string of sub-freezing temperatures, and added 20 mobile warming sites to help frigid New Yorkers escape the cold.
Since a “Code Blue” was declared in NYC Jan. 19 after a long streak of below-freezing temperatures, more than 1,100 homeless people have been placed in shelters, but just 20 have been involuntarily removed from the streets, Mamdani said.
New Yorkers are still being advised to call 311 if they spot a homeless person sleeping outdoors in extreme cold. Still, the operators jump right into asking questions seemingly to determine which cases qualify as a “last resort.”
One caller told The Post they were asked for a description of the homeless individual’s clothes and whether he had a weapon.
“I’m like, ‘I have no idea, just get him off the street in front of the playground. You can’t miss him on the street.’”
Gelinas said when she recently called, she was asked how old they thought the person was — which she admitted she had no idea because they were under a blanket.
“I think some of these questions might put off the callers,” she said.
Instead, Gelinas says the Mamdani administration should be telling concerned residents to call 911, which would convey the sense of urgency the life-and-death situation calls for.
“But they are sending mixed signals” by instructing people to call 311, she says, which she worries could give homeless people a false sense of security that they’ll be OK outside overnight.
There were 29 cold exposure deaths in the city in 2023, according to the latest available figures that don’t separate between victims who are homeless and those who have shelter.
Between 2020 and 2023, there were an average of about 34 cold exposure fatalities.
With more than six weeks until spring, this year’s 17 deaths so far already eclipse totals for every year between 2010 and 2019 except 2018, when 21 people died in the cold.
The City Council’s Public Safety Committee will hold a joint meeting with the General Welfare Committee on Tuesday to examine the city’s Code Blue operations.
