Critics push Mamdani, NYC to do more to force homeless into shelters after 10 die in deep freeze

At least six people found dead outdoors during the city’s Arctic deep freeze had suffered from homelessness, the mayor revealed Wednesday – as one advocate said he can’t remember so many deaths from one storm.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters that six of the 10 people found dead as Winter Storm Fern descended on the Big Apple over the weekend had been in contact with the city’s shelter system while seven of the dead are believed to have had hypothermia.

Critics warned Mamdani it was time to “step up” as some said the city needed to do more to force homeless individuals into shelters — even though Mamdani has called that a “last resort” and ordered his administration to stop clearing tent encampments in the five boroughs.

“I’ve lived in New York City all my life and I can’t remember a time when so many people have died from a winter storm in such a short period of time, it’s absolutely tragic,” Coalition For The Homeless executive director Dave Giffen said Wednesday.

Past city leaders argued authorities should be showing tough love to the homeless — and not giving them a choice but to come inside.

“I don’t care what your ideology is,” former city Comptroller Scott Stringer argued. “When it’s 7 degrees, you get everyone in a safe place.”

The twice-mayoral candidate said there should be more alarm over the grim body count.

“If there were 10 shooting deaths there would be a mass mobilization,” he told The Post.

Stringer admitted tackling homelessness has been a “bureaucratic nightmare” across numerous administrations — but said it’s now Mamdani’s time to “step up.”

Ex-FDNY Commissioner Tom Van Essen said he would have directed firefighters and EMS workers to pick up homeless people and take them to a shelter during these unbearable conditions “whether they like it or not.”

He blamed state lawmakers for refusing to make it easier to haul people off the streets for their own good.

“We have many mentally ill people who are incarcerated at Rikers,” Van Essen told The Post. “But we allow other mentally ill people to freeze to death?”

In the most recent tally compiled by the city, there were 29 deaths tied to cold weather including the homeless in 2023.

On average, there have been 27 cold exposure deaths between 2017 and 2023, according to city data.

The official causes of deaths of the 10 so far this year have yet to be determined by the city medical examiner.

At least one of the deaths was a 90-year-old woman with dementia who was not homeless, but wandered from her Brooklyn apartment before she was found dead Monday morning, Gothamist reported, citing neighbors.

The heartbreak stretched across four boroughs with three deaths each in Queens and Brooklyn and another two fatalities each in Manhattan and the Bronx dating back to Saturday, according to the NYPD.

Six people were already dead by the time first responders reached their bodies.

In another instance, St. Barnabas Hospital staff found a 60-year-old man unresponsive just outside the medical center Saturday morning.

They rushed him inside, but he was ultimately pronounced dead.

Another man was found naked by a construction worker in the Bronx Monday morning while a 47-year-old man was discovered slumped on a bench outside a Key Foods in Queens, law enforcement sources said.

The loss of life comes after Mamdani said coming into office he would take a less forceful approach to pulling New Yorkers off the streets by ending homeless encampment raids heralded by the Adams administration.

On Tuesday, he said, “If a New Yorker is a danger to themselves or to others then that’s the driving force of that decision” in reference to forcing someone off the street in the frigid conditions.

“This is a last resort,” he added.

“Our first method of outreach is to communicate to homeless New Yorkers across the five boroughs as to the options that they have. We however are not going to leave someone out in the cold if they’re a danger to themselves or to others.”

Mamdani’s office said in a statement Wednesday it’s ramped up effort to reach people on the streets, including having outreach groups looking to help those in need every two hours.

The city also opened 10 new warming centers and rolled out another 10 warming vans while asking faith-based leaders for a hand, according to City Hall.

But Giffen, of the homeless coalition, said the tragic turn of the winter storm that dropped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Big Apple shows more urgent action is needed.

“Is the city doing enough, I think the answer to that is very clearly no because of the fact there have been so many deaths,” he said.

But he pointed the finger at Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, insisting that sweeps of homeless encampments were “counterproductive” to helping the homeless. Mamdani has ended the practice in his administration.

“There was a real policy and approach of criminalization of involuntary removals that created an overwhelming feeling of fear and mistrust among many of the people who were sleeping unsheltered,” he said. 

Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Nicole Gelinas said she’s not quick to blame Mamdani for the deaths, but said the mayor should be encouraging residents to call 911 — not 311 — when a homeless New Yorker is spotted.

She believes Mamdani is not treating this situation gravely enough.

“If they are letting them stay in an encampment with blankets and gloves, are they involuntary removing them or do they think they are safe,” Gelinas said. “That is the question because they may think they are safe but their brains could just stop working overnight.”

Additional reporting by Joe Marino, Tina Moore and Amanda Woods