Critics are enraged by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hands-off policy leaving homeless New Yorkers on the streets during extreme cold, and pleading that the city do anything in its power to protect the vulnerable population.
But the administration refused to budge as the Big Apple’s winter death toll rose to 18 — even as a nearby big-city mayor admired by Mamdani rolled out a policy to get people inside.
“When a person is in imminent danger, there is no debate. I don’t think this kind of ideological divides should have any impact on these policies during a ‘Code Blue,’” Brian Stettin, who served as a senior adviser to Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, told The Post.
He called the case of a mumbling homeless woman who braved sub-Antarctic temperatures featured on The Post’s Monday front page “infuriating,” and said cases like hers should be a no-brainer.
“They should be doing everything they can to get them inside. That is why we need cops out on the streets. We are talking about an imminent threat to rights or safety, there shouldn’t be any debate with advocates over that.”
Miraculously, the homeless woman survived the deep freeze — including temperatures in the five boroughs lower than Antarctica — and was still out on the sidewalk Monday, with first responders telling The Post they couldn’t help her under city guidelines.
The Post attempted to speak to the woman, who remained hunkered down in a makeshift hovel on East 34th Street across from NYU Langone Hospital, but she ignored reporters’ questions.
Several people at the shop she camps out in front of said she’s been there for “years” and that there had been no attempts made since Saturday to move her.
City Hall officials briefed council members over the weekend, but barely said anything about involuntarily removing people, a council source said.
The mayor’s office threw up their hands, saying they’re bound by the wholly unscientific “last resort” policy currently in place, in which someone can only be forced indoors if they are deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Over in Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott — whom Mamdani once praised for his crime-reduction efforts — late last month called the cold a life-and-death issue and ordered the police department to take people off the streets even if they were refusing services.
“That direction order came from me because we cannot allow folks to be out in this kind of weather,” Scott said.
A City Hall spokeswoman claimed the comparison to Baltimore didn’t work because of differing laws between New York and Maryland.
But former City Comptroller Scott Stringer said the Baltimore mayor’s approach makes sense given the urgency. He noted that the city’s removal policy was highly subjective, and that the mayor has extraordinary power over its interpretation or analysis.
“You bring ’em in, and you worry about the court case later,” he said.
“The question is: is it ideology or incompetence for the lack of action? Saving lives is the most important thing you can do as an elected official. The standard has to be in this extreme weather, ‘can they survive the night?’ And that’s what Baltimore is saying,” Stringer said.
“It’s just not a tough call when people can die in the night. I don’t understand why it’s so complicated.”
City Hall press secretary Dora Pekec said the Mamdani admin did not change any Adams-era policies about removals.
Another source said the Sanitation Department was “tidying up” but have been explicitly told not to remove homeless encampments, a departure from the policy under Adams.
Instead, sanitation workers are being told to organize the camp-dwellers’ belongings — stacking them neatly — and cops aren’t allowed to do anything to clear sidewalks.
“It’s been essentially confusion across the board. Sanitation is now like maid services for the homeless,” said another frustrated council source.
— Additional reporting by Desheania Andrews and Carl Campanile
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