One of the major issues awaiting Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani when he takes office on Jan. 1 will be how to approach New York City’s growing street homelessness crisis.

Mamdani has pledged to end homeless encampment sweeps that city data shows largely fail to connect New Yorkers to permanent housing. Homeless advocates have long criticized the sweeps as traumatic tactics that simply push people from one street to another, though some business owners say they help keep public sidewalks safe for passersby.

Some policy experts say clearing encampments could work to get chronically homeless people off the street if the city could do a better job of connecting them to housing and services.

“It can’t be the case that it’s either we have no encampments or encampments can be everywhere,” said Liz Glazer, founder of Vital City, a nonprofit think tank. “Right now what we do is we sort of operate by crisis, not by solution.”

Mamdani has pledged to create a new Department of Community Safety to coordinate homeless outreach and respond to those experiencing mental health crises, an effort he said has too often fallen on police. Specialists in the department will help homeless New Yorkers navigate their housing options. The mayor-elect also wants to transform vacant MTA commercial spaces to provide medical services to homeless New Yorkers and add dedicated outreach workers in subway stations. He plans to survey all crisis programs and grow those that rely on peers — people who have experienced substance use or homelessness — to do more outreach.

Vital City said in a report released earlier this month that the incoming administration should remain focused on a two-pronged goal: maintaining public spaces for public purposes and ensuring every person on the street is housed and receives services.

Glazer said it will be important for a single person to be accountable for outcomes for homeless New Yorkers. That person, she argued, should work to streamline the convoluted, disparate approach to homelessness that is currently spread across multiple city agencies and dozens of nonprofits.

“Who gets fired?“ Glazer said. “No one actually owns it. It’s not like sanitation where you might get fired for not plowing the streets.”

Vital City said the administration should concentrate existing services to prevent the same people from cycling through jails, hospitals and streets. About a quarter of the people leaving the Rikers Island jails are homeless or likely to become homeless, the policy group said.

Where people fall through the cracks

Vital City

“There needs to be a front door to the system, there could be a million paths behind it,” Glazer said. “People need different things. Different organizations do different stuff. There has to be a front door that makes it clear: Go here first, then we will help navigate.”

City data reviewed by Gothamist shows Mayor Eric Adams’ administration conducted more than 4,100 sweeps over an 18-month period, moving nearly 6,000 people from public spaces. The data, spanning from January 2024 to June 2025, shows about 260 people agreed to move to a temporary shelter. None received permanent housing.

Former mayors have also conducted sweeps, but Adams ordered an interagency collaboration led by the NYPD to get people off the streets and connected to services. He has said he did so because there’s no dignity in living on the streets. Mamdani said he would end the practice, contending it does not actually help those who have nowhere to go.

“We cannot allow ourselves to become complacent with what has become the norm in this city," he said at a press conference earlier this month. "And that doesn’t mean leaving New Yorkers to sleep in the cold. It means connecting those New Yorkers with a place that they can actually be warm."

The Vital City report found homelessness-related 311 complaints tripled between 2019 and 2024, growing faster than the city’s homeless population. Most of those calls happened in less than 1% of the city, predominately in Manhattan south of 57th Street.

The city last year received more than 82,000 homelessness-related 311 calls, the report found.

Most of the city’s homeless population lives in shelters and only about 3% sleep on the street — the smallest share for any large U.S. city. The city’s right-to-shelter rules generally offer a bed to anyone who asks for one, and help keep people off the streets.

Still, street homelessness is rising, according to available data. This year’s annual street homelessness count found about 4,500 people were sleeping outdoors, an increase from last year.