Manhattan’s reported 12-block homeless camp tests Mamdani’s outreach-first sweep policy

A homeless encampment reported to extend roughly 12 blocks along Manhattan’s West Side — from West 34th Street to West 46th Street along 11th Avenue — has become a flashpoint for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with residents, workers and tourists near the Intrepid Museum and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center telling reporters the city isn’t doing enough to address it.

“I think it’s embarrassing,” Joan G., a woman who declined to give her last name, told Fox News Digital near the camp. A nearby construction-site security guard who identified himself only as “Joe the Dog Man” was more blunt, telling Fox News Digital the situation involves “drugs, prostitution and everything else in between.”

Mr. Mamdani initially offered few specifics about when the encampment would be removed. Asked about it last week, he said the city was “going to look into the details of that,” according to a report that cited the New York Post. He later said that under the administration’s procedure, the Department of Homeless Services conducts seven days of daily outreach after notice is given before an encampment is dismantled — and that “by the 7th day, following the notice, the encampment will be cleared.” A CBS New York report quoted the mayor saying his focus is “connecting New Yorkers to shelter,” not “just moving New Yorkers from one place to another.”

Mr. Mamdani paused encampment sweeps when he took office, fulfilling a campaign promise, before reinstating them in February under a Department of Homeless Services-led policy requiring the seven-day outreach period. City workers who visited this week were seen mostly collecting trash, with many tents remaining in place.

Some campers have also been drawing power from utility poles, prompting a police response.

“The NYPD has not been given the green light to clean this encampment up, but we are ready to do so,” an NYPD spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The controversy echoes arguments raised during Los Angeles’ mayoral primary over the roles of housing costs, mental illness and substance abuse in street homelessness. Spencer Pratt, a Republican who ran in the city’s nonpartisan mayoral primary and was eliminated in June as City Councilwoman Nithya Raman advanced to a November runoff instead, argued during his campaign that Los Angeles’ street population largely reflects drug use rather than a lack of shelter beds. “They’re not homeless. They’re drug addicts,” Mr. Pratt said in a May interview with ABC7 Los Angeles.