Zohran K. Mamdani campaigned last year to freeze the rent, subsidize groceries, and raise taxes for childcare spending. Instead, two and a half weeks into office, he got winter.
But even more important than the massive snowfall is the deep freeze that has settled in over the past ten days and nights—perhaps the longest such period of sharply low temperatures in the city’s history. In such bitter cold, people stuck outside—most of them homeless—will die.
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The mayor’s response to this slowly unfolding disaster hasn’t been the failure that his critics make it out to be. But it illustrates that his stated campaign policy on the city’s street population—to leave them alone if they refuse all help—is unworkable.
During the cold snap on Tuesday, Mamdani told reporters, “[A]t least 10 New Yorkers have tragically lost their lives after being found outdoors. We don’t yet know whether every case will be ruled hypothermia.” On Wednesday, he said that, of these ten individuals, six “were known” to the city’s department of homeless services, and seven exhibited symptoms of hypothermia (the medical examiner hasn’t made official rulings yet).
This death toll sounds awful—and it is. But it exists in a grim historic context. In 2023, the last year for which data are available, 29 New Yorkers died from “exposure to excessive natural cold.” In 2022, the city recorded 52 exposure deaths; in 2021, 34; in 2020, 22; and in 2019, 17. Just as homicide and car-crash deaths rose in the Covid-19 era, so did exposure deaths: the annual average of 34 between 2020 and 2023 is far higher than the annual average of 12 between 2010 and 2019. The ages and genders of these individuals (disproportionately middle-aged men) indicate that death stalks people who live on the street—especially those with such severe untreated mental illness or drug addiction that they cannot make rational decisions.
The mayor seems shaken by these preventable deaths; he is the one who voluntarily publicized them, and he has directed his homeless-services department to do everything possible to get people inside. The city is paying overtime shifts to outreach workers, deploying vans so that people can warm up immediately, opening daytime warming centers, and convincing even recalcitrant individuals to come into nighttime shelters, which, under longstanding New York City policy, are open to everyone, no questions asked.
But the mayor’s understanding of the causes of homelessness stands in the way of these sincere efforts. In his view, homelessness stems primarily from a lack of suitable housing—not from entrenched mental illness or addiction. He sees the homeless as people generally capable of making rational decisions in their own best interests.
During last year’s campaign, Mamdani promised to end a program initiated by his predecessor, Eric Adams, that deploys clinicians, backed by police officers, to assess people’s ability to care for themselves and, if necessary, to transport them involuntarily to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. He repeatedly said that involuntary commitment was a “last resort,” preferring instead an approach that would have civilian workers “help that person navigate their housing options.” He has also disavowed dismantling homeless encampments.
This approach is dubious even in good circumstances, but in an extended deep freeze, it is potentially deadly, because it sends an inconsistent message. In his public-service video informing the public of the “life-threatening” impact of the cold, for example, he directed New Yorkers to call 311 “if you see someone outside in the cold who looks like they might need help.” (Mayor Adams did this, too.) By definition, though, anyone lying down or sitting huddled on a sidewalk or bench in this weather needs help. Hypothermia slows brain function, meaning that a passer-by following these instructions might stop, ask someone on a sidewalk if he needs help, get a sluggish shake of the head, and move on. Moreover, 311 is the city’s number for non-emergency public services. Telling the public to call 311 and not 911 sends the message that these encounters are not critical. (Again, it’s not the protocol that is new here, but the protocol coupled with Mamdani’s general stance that homeless people have the right to decide to live on the street.)
Mamdani’s inconsistency is apparent, too, in the answer he gave on Tuesday to a question on involuntary removals. The city has brought at least three people in from the cold against their wishes. But Mamdani’s discussion of this policy was uneven: “if a New Yorker is a danger to themselves or to others, then that’s the driving force of that decision. . . . This is a last resort. . . . We are, however, not going to leave someone out in the cold if they’re a danger to themselves or others.” A more forceful statement would have ended with: we’re not going to leave someone out in the cold. A person who chooses to stay outside in this weather is demonstrably an acute peril to himself.
Since Mamdani has proven flexible on several key policies, including some of his stances toward policing, his experience during these first few weeks in office may spur him to rethink his policies toward people living in public spaces year-round, as well. The person shivering in the doorway because his desire to continue shooting up drugs outweighs his desire to remain alive—or because he is so gripped by mental illness that he doesn’t know where he is—is the same person who can’t make a rational decision even when it is warm out. Such people need help solving their problems.
In both cases, the problem isn’t a lack of housing. It’s the mental state that leaves people unable to care for themselves.
Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images