Homeless New Yorkers are praising their living conditions under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, telling the New York Post that street life has gotten “much better” since the democratic socialist took office and eased the city’s approach to encampment enforcement. The shift has coincided with the reappearance of tent camps in neighborhoods across the city, including one situated directly across the street from New York University dormitories, according to reporting from the New York Post and The Daily Wire.
One homeless man who goes by the name Raymond described a stark change in how police interact with people living on the streets. “The past mayor had the police and they just came through and took stuff,” he told the Post. “Now they ask if we are OK and need help.”
A Reversal, Then a Partial Reversal
Mamdani initially halted New York City’s encampment sweeps upon entering office, undoing a policy that former Mayor Eric Adams had pursued aggressively. That pause did not last. After at least 18 homeless people died outdoors during the city’s record-breaking cold winter, the mayor reinstated the sweeps — though they remain considerably less forceful than the operations conducted under his predecessor, who made clearing encampments a signature priority of his administration.
The mechanics of the policy have changed as well. Under Mamdani, the Department of Homeless Services rather than the New York Police Department leads the response to encampments. Previously, authorities could dismantle a camp within a single day. The current policy requires Department of Homeless Services staff to visit an encampment daily for one week and offer services to its residents before the city can move to clear it.
The administration has characterized the slower timeline as a more humane method of connecting homeless New Yorkers with services instead of simply seizing their belongings. Critics counter that the approach leaves dangerous and unsanitary encampments standing while doing little to address the underlying reasons so many homeless people avoid the city’s shelter system altogether.
Sliwa: Fear of Shelters Keeps People on the Streets
Former New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa told The Daily Wire that safety concerns inside the shelter system are a major factor keeping people outdoors. “They fear going into a shelter where they’re going to be preyed upon, where what few, few items that they may have will be stolen from them, where they can be sexually abused and physically harassed, and just again turned into a human piñata,” Sliwa said.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment.
A Visible Flashpoint Near Campus
The encampment across from NYU dorms illustrates how the policy debate plays out block by block. For students and residents, the camps are a daily presence that raises questions about sanitation, safety, and the city’s obligations to its most vulnerable residents. For the people living in them, the relaxed posture has meant fewer disruptions and, in Raymond’s account, interactions with police that feel more like welfare checks than enforcement actions.
How long that equilibrium holds is an open question. The reinstated sweeps give the city a tool to clear camps, but the week-long service requirement and the shift away from police-led operations mean the pace of removals is unlikely to match the Adams-era approach. Whether the city’s more deliberate process succeeds in moving people into shelters — or simply leaves encampments in place longer — will likely shape how voters judge Mamdani’s handling of one of New York’s most persistent and visible crises.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/street-life-much-better-under-mamdani-homeless-rave