Get set to see more homeless camps lasting longer now that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has told the NYPD “hands off.”
City Hall sent out word Tuesday: Police may no longer even respond to complaints about homeless encampments.
Yep: Though unsightly, unhygienic and completely illegal, those clots of cardboard boxes, sofa pillows, broken office chairs and blue tarps that congeal under sidewalk sheds and outside vacant storefronts are now safe spaces.
Cops who encounter an encampment must now call 311, file a report with the Department of Homeless Services and then step back and wait for the (already overwhelmed) social workers to step up.
This is nuts: The vagrants who erect and inhabit these camps are hard-core homeless who’ve already rejected the option of living in a shelter.
God bless homeless-outreach workers, whose job is thankless and rarely rewarding, but their role is to offer gentle assistance to people who are frequently mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs, to connect them with help with all their problems.
But compassionate encouragement won’t dislodge people sleeping on cardboard sidewalk pallets.
That’s why the city has always tasked police with handling encampments.
As with domestic-violence calls, some things are best left to the experts trained to respond if the situation escalates.
We have to wonder if the mayor truly signed off on this new policy: While he’s not letting the NYPD grow, he has backed off the worst “defund” extremism, including the deranged drive to swap out police for social workers.
On Wednesday, the mayor raised eyebrows when he praised addressing “quality of life” concerns, which the left has always seen as a racist “dog-whistle.”
Sorry: Quality of life absolutely extends to safe, clean streets and sidewalks.
If Mamdani has truly opted to let a thousand encampments bloom, he’s forgotten what the word “quality” means.
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