With 19 deaths and a policy reversal, Mamdani’s approach to homelessness faces its first real test
When the Freeze Exposed the Gaps
The New York Times published an opinion piece on February 27, 2026, examining the early failures and unresolved tensions in the Mamdani administration’s approach to homelessness in New York City — a topic that has become unavoidably central to the mayor’s first weeks in office. The piece was published against a backdrop of at least 19 New Yorkers who had died in and around the city’s streets and shelters during the January cold snap that preceded the February blizzard, 15 of them from hypothermia. Most of those who died had had some prior contact with the city’s shelter system.
The deaths sharpened an already difficult question that Mamdani had tried to answer during his campaign with a philosophy rather than a plan: what does a progressive mayor who opposes the use of police coercion in homelessness policy do when people are dying on the streets? His answer, early in his tenure, was to pause the encampment clearing operations — sometimes called sweeps — that had been a centerpiece of the Adams administration’s approach. He framed the pause as a moral commitment to treating homeless New Yorkers with dignity, and a recognition that sweeps, which move people from one location to another without providing housing, do not actually reduce homelessness.
The Reversal, and the Backlash That Followed
But after the January deaths, Mamdani reversed course. He announced the resumption of encampment clearing operations, specifying that the Department of Homeless Services — not the NYPD — would lead the operations. Outreach workers would approach people at targeted sites every day before any clearing occurred. The mayor described the change as a pragmatic recognition that dangerous outdoor conditions required a different response than his initial policy had allowed. Homeless rights advocates, including VOCAL-NY and the Coalition for the Homeless, were not satisfied. They had applauded the original pause as a signal that the administration understood the difference between clearing and housing. They saw the reversal as a capitulation to political pressure and a retreat from the administration’s stated values.
The op-ed examined this tension with characteristic Times editorial directness: good intentions are not sufficient in a crisis that kills people. The Mamdani administration’s philosophical commitments — to dignity, to housing over enforcement, to non-police social services — are the right commitments, the piece argued. But a commitment is not a system. The city currently has approximately 90,000 people in its shelter system on any given night. Thousands more are living outdoors, in encampments, in vehicles, or in other unsheltered conditions. The right-to-shelter mandate, in place since 1981, requires the city to provide a bed to anyone who requests one — but it does not require the city to provide a bed that is safe, dignified, or located near the services a person needs.
The Commissioner Resignation and the Appointment That Followed
The departure of DSS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park added institutional disruption to an already difficult moment. Wasow Park, a two-decade city employee, was informed she would not be retained under Mamdani and submitted her resignation. At her final City Council hearing, she said her departure was unrelated to the winter deaths — a statement that was technically plausible and politically convenient but that resolved nothing about the adequacy of the city’s homelessness response during the cold snap.
Mamdani named Erin Dalton, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services in Pittsburgh, as Wasow Park’s replacement. Dalton’s credentials are strong: under her leadership, Allegheny County built a winter shelter network that reduced outdoor homelessness by approximately 98 percent, and she redesigned the county’s mobile crisis response system in ways that align directly with Mamdani’s Department of Community Safety vision. But Allegheny County’s shelter system serves a fraction of the population that DSS serves in New York City, and advocates have noted that the scale difference is not just logistical — it is political, legal, and financial in ways that may not translate directly from Pittsburgh to the Bronx.
What the Opinion Demands
The Times opinion piece stopped short of prescribing specific policies, but its implicit demand was clear: the Mamdani administration must move from philosophy to implementation on homelessness, and faster than it has so far. That means a serious and adequately funded plan for converting the approximately 5,000 vacant housing units with on-site social services into permanent housing for the roughly 2,000 New Yorkers with serious mental illness living outdoors. It means a Department of Community Safety that is not just a legislative proposal but a functioning agency. And it means encampment policy that is genuinely anchored in housing access, not just in shifting enforcement from one agency to another.
For data on NYC homelessness, see the Coalition for the Homeless. For the right-to-shelter mandate history, see NYC Department of Homeless Services. For national homelessness research, see National Alliance to End Homelessness. For housing for people with mental illness, see SAMHSA housing resources.
