Lessons from recent New York City history for Mayor Mamdani
The trial for Randy Rodriguez Santos, the man accused of murdering four unhoused New Yorkers in 2019, is underway. This case is horrific, but the violent death of people living on the streets is unsurprising. It happens all too frequently.
The danger of being unsheltered has been compounded recently by the deep winter freeze. As many as 16 New Yorkers (as of this writing) have died as a result of the extreme cold. While we don’t know their living situations, it’s reasonable to assume that at least some were unhoused.
Living on the streets is dangerous, whether you live alone or you live with one or more people in what is typically referred to as an encampment.
This behavior also impacts all New Yorkers. Neighborhood residents and businesses are concerned about people living on the streets, and particularly by encampments. Expectedly, this issue was raised during the recent mayoral campaign. Then-candidate Zohran Mamdani made clear he rejects the blunt-force tactic of dismantling encampments without viable alternatives and he put efforts to address encampments on hold. This is the position he continues to take as mayor.
Recently, he said, “the heart of this has to be the connection with services that they want, that they will use, that they will actually utilize.” That perspective is right, but it shouldn’t prevent us from addressing encampments. Indeed, the city should dismantle encampments — and connect those in encampments to the services and housing they want and need.
We can’t see this issue as an either/or proposition: either we prioritize clearing encampments over the needs and preferences of individual people, or we let people live in encampments as long as they prefer to.
If we care about people and care about the city, we should not accept encampments as a permanent feature of urban life. It is not humane to allow people to live this way; it robs people of their dignity and puts their lives at risk. New York can and has done better than either letting people struggle in encampments or evicting them without providing an alternative, safe place to go.
I have seen a different approach work, one that balances the needs of individual people with the understanding that encampments are bad for everyone.
The risks of living on the streets
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, mortality rates for unhoused people are 3.5 times higher than for housed individuals. Furthermore, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, traumatic injury is the second leading cause of death among unhoused people under the age of 45, and people who live on the streets die on an average of 20 years earlier than people who are housed.
We shouldn’t just be concerned about higher premature deaths. People who live on the streets, according to the Centers for Disease Control, experience higher rates of infectious and non-infectious diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV, diabetes, heart disease and more. Allowing people to live on the streets results in worse health, and therefore, unnecessary serious struggle and suffering.
Nearly 20 years ago, when I was serving as an assistant commissioner at the New York City Department of Homeless Services under Mayor Bloomberg, encampments were a visible and growing concern. We faced many of the same challenges we see today: people who had been living outside for years, deep mistrust of government, untreated mental illness, substance use and a shelter system that too often felt ill-suited to people’s needs.
We understood that our choice wasn’t between letting encampments languish and callously uprooting people with force.
Rather, we created a dynamic, citywide list of encampments, informed by outreach teams, community members and other agencies. Each site became a focus of coordinated interagency work. Outreach providers took the lead, and they were supported by housing specialists, health professionals and city agencies responsible for the physical space itself.
Crucially, we started with the people.
Outreach teams spent time understanding who was living in each encampment and what they wanted. Not what was easiest for the system — but what would actually work for them. Did they want to move directly to permanent housing? Transitional housing? Which borough? Did they want roommates or privacy? Were there medical needs that had gone unaddressed for years?
Plans were built person by person. Timelines were set based on readiness and available options. Outreach happened every day leading up to a move. Housing placements were often secured before an encampment was formally cleared.
This was time-intensive and personnel-intensive work, and it was not perfect. Some people declined help. Some moved to another outdoor setting. But many ended up inside, in settings that made sense for them, with their belongings and dignity preserved.
And critically, the City did not simply walk away afterward. Teams returned regularly to prevent repopulation and to make physical improvements like better lighting, repaired fencing and safer design that reduced the likelihood that encampments would re-form.
Street homelessness declined by 40% from 2006 to 2011 because we were serious and deliberate about getting results.
Compassion requires accountability
One of the reasons this approach worked was that it was grounded in clear accountability.
There was a single point of responsibility for street homelessness. Outreach providers were expected to produce outcomes. City agencies were expected to coordinate. And City Hall was paying attention.
Over the years, fidelity to this model eroded as the political and policy approach shifted between the administrations and resource investment made responsibility more diffuse. The result has been more visible street homelessness, more encampments and more people struggling and at increased risk of dying early through violence or as a result of health challenges or extreme weather.
The Mamdani administration has an opportunity to advance a humane, disciplined approach that aligns with its values. Importantly, New York now has far more, and better, options to offer people than it did two decades ago.
Innovations under multiple administrations have helped fill out the continuum of care. De Blasio-era investments in Intensive Mobile Treatment created new pathways for people with serious mental illness who were failed by traditional programs. NYC Health + Hospitals has expanded medical respite and bridge-to-home programs that allow people to recover safely after hospitalization rather than being discharged back to the street. And recent state investments have brought new crisis and stabilization options into the system.
Programs like SOS teams, short-term transitional units, and ICL’s STEPS now exist to serve people with the highest acuity in the ways that best fit their individual needs.
The issue today is not a lack of options. It is prioritization and coordination. People living in encampments should be offered choice and the resources they need and want.
A both/and strategy
A humane approach to encampments rests on a few core principles:
First, we should be clear that encampments are not an acceptable outcome. People deserve better than a tent and a shopping cart, especially in a city with New York’s resources.
Second, clearing encampments must be inseparable from offering real, desirable alternatives that reflect people’s needs and preferences.
Third, outreach must be persistent, well-supported and accountable for outcomes.
Fourth, the City must invest in preventing encampments from re-forming through design, ongoing outreach and rapid response.
It is a people-first strategy that takes people seriously enough to insist on better.
Mayor Mamdani is right that connection to services and housing must be at the heart of the City’s response. But that connection must be paired with a clear commitment to ending street homelessness.
New York has done this before. We have the values, experience, the infrastructure, and the tools to do it again.