Civilian outreach teams and transit ambassadors, not the NYPD, will handle subway homeless outreach
Zohran Mamdani (campaign pledge)
Housing & Real Estate Active Updated Jul 5, 2026
The street count
NYC's 2026 HOPE count found 4,991 people sleeping outside, the highest in more than a decade and 11% above last year, as the Mamdani administration takes office promising a different approach to homelessness. The same week, the city ended its $3.8 million contract with Mainchance, Midtown East's only drop-in center, closing it during a heat emergency and displacing 300 daily clients. The record street count and the mid-summer service cut set up a fight over shelter capacity and what the city owes its unsheltered residents that will run through summer.
The story so far
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Jul 4, 2026 Latest
NYC's annual HOPE count found 4,991 people sleeping outside, the highest in more than a decade and 11% above last year's tally. On June 30, the Department of Homeless Services ended its $3.8 million annual contract with Mainchance, closing the drop-in center at 120 East 32nd Street that fed about 300 people daily, during a heat emergency. The city deployed two vans outside the shuttered building to redirect clients to drop-in centers on 14th Street, 52nd Street, and West 30th Street.
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Mar 11, 2026
State Comptroller DiNapoli reported city spending on street homelessness more than tripled from $102 million in fiscal 2019 to $368 million in fiscal 2025, heading for a projected $456 million this year, while the unsheltered population rose from 3,588 to 4,504 over the same stretch. Placements into permanent or transitional housing were up more than 400% since fiscal 2017, to 10,841.
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Feb 3, 2026
With at least 16 deaths since freezing weather set in on January 23, Mayor Mamdani rejected calls to revive encampment sweeps, calling the policy a failure, and opened a stalled 53-room Breaking Ground safe haven near the South Street Seaport for older and medically frail adults. The cold also pushed the annual HOPE count from late January to March for the first time since it began in 2005.
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Oct 29, 2025
Candidate Mamdani said he would take the NYPD out of subway homeless outreach, deploying civilian teams of peers, mental health specialists, and EMTs from a new Department of Community Safety to the stations with the most crises, plus transit ambassadors on platforms for directions and emergencies.
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Jul 3, 2025
The 2025 HOPE count came in at 4,504 unsheltered New Yorkers on the night of January 28, up 9% in a year and the third straight year above 4,000, with the subway count up 14% to 2,338. The city pointed to nearly 1,600 new Safe Haven and stabilization beds opened under Adams and a $600 million commitment for 900 more Safe Haven beds, 500 of them promised by year's end.
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May 9, 2025
Hochul signed a state budget expanding involuntary commitment: a person can now be committed when mental illness leaves them unable or unwilling to provide for essential needs like food, medical care, or shelter. The package put $16.5 million toward county assisted outpatient treatment programs and amended Kendra's Law to allow new petitions within six months of an expired order.
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Jun 13, 2024
The 2024 HOPE count found 4,140 people unsheltered on the night of January 23, statistically flat from 2023, while the overall shelter census sat at record highs on the asylum-seeker influx. The city said more than 2,000 unsheltered New Yorkers had reached permanent housing since the start of the administration, over 500 of them through end-of-line subway outreach.
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Jun 30, 2023
The 2023 HOPE count estimated 4,042 people sleeping unsheltered on the night of January 24, up from 3,439 in 2022 and roughly in line with the pre-pandemic 3,857 of 2020. Gothamist noted a comptroller finding that just 3 of 2,308 people removed in encampment sweeps between March and November 2022 ended up in permanent housing.
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Nov 29, 2022
Adams issued a directive telling police, outreach workers, and city hospitals they have legal authority to involuntarily remove people to hospitals when severe mental illness leaves them unable to meet basic needs, even without a recent dangerous act. The move rested on an expansive reading of state mental hygiene law, and civil liberties groups immediately called it ripe for court challenge.
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Feb 18, 2022
Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul released the Subway Safety Plan: up to 30 joint response teams pairing homeless services, health department, NYPD, and community providers, new drop-in centers near key stations, more Safe Haven beds, and an end-of-line rule requiring every rider to leave the train. Hochul said state funding would bring 600 new psychiatric beds and 500 supportive housing slots online.
On the record
The checkable commitments in this fight, tracked until they are kept or broken.
Open 900 new Safe Haven beds with $600 million, 500 of them by the end of 2025
Mayor Eric Adams administration (Department of Social Services)
DiNapoli's March 2026 report documented $106 million spent on the 900-bed program in fiscal 2025, and the city reported more than 430 new low-barrier beds opened in early 2026; no public accounting confirmed the 500-bed year-end milestone was met.
NYC Department of Social ServicesOffice of the New York State Comptroller
End homeless encampment sweeps
Zohran Mamdani (campaign pledge)
Mamdani refused to revive sweeps through the deadly February cold, but Gothamist reported on July 2, 2026 that his administration had resumed encampment sweeps, with the Department of Homeless Services rather than the NYPD in charge.
Change New York's involuntary commitment law in 2025
Gov. Kathy Hochul
The state budget Hochul signed May 9, 2025 expanded the commitment standard to cover people whose mental illness leaves them unable or unwilling to provide for essential needs such as food, medical care, or shelter.
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