Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was ripped by a former top NYPD cop over the far-lefty’s plan to end homeless encampment sweeps, predicting the shift will lead to a sharp rise in shanty towns along city streets.
Ex-Chief of Department John Chell railed Friday against Mamdani’s vow to cease the sweeps, a massive change in policy announced by incoming mayor on Thursday.
“Under current law, you generally cannot force individuals into shelter—and the majority refuse services,” Chell wrote on social media. “Outreach does not automatically mean acceptance. Ending street intervention programs before building sufficient housing, shelter, and treatment capacity is not a plan—it’s a gamble.
“Those resources must be created first and clearly codified,” he wrote, adding, “Otherwise, the predictable result will be a sharp rise in encampments, declining street conditions, and serious quality-of-life impacts across our neighborhoods.”
The former chief-turned-TV pundit, who recently retired from the NYPD, criticized the plan from Mamdani as more of the young socialist’s “rhetoric” that won’t translate into reality.
“We don’t have time for experiments,” he quipped.
Mamdani, 34, told reporters on Thursday he planned to nix the series of operations dismantling makeshift camps around the city, saying the policy hasn’t led to enough people in permanent housing.
“If you are not connecting homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need, then you cannot deem anything you’re doing to be a success,” Mamdani said in a shot at the Adams admin policy.
Mamdani said he would instead focus on connecting people with housing — however offered up no details on how to fix the issue, which has plagued numerous mayors.
More than 45,000 complaints for encampments were reported this year alone.
The sweeps were brought back by Adams earlier on in his first year as a key initiative to clean up city streets.
“We cannot tolerate these makeshift, unsafe houses on the side of highways, in trees, in front of schools, in parks,” Adams said in March 2020, shortly after rolling out the policy shift.
Adams has faced criticism for the sweeps, with his opponents saying he failed to place enough people with permanent housing.
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