Mayor Mamdani’s proposals will fail to address the – Latest News
For a yr, I labored with the homeless in New York City. Over the course of that yr, I encountered more than 200 unhoused people.
Only three ended up in everlasting housing.
Our crew consisted of me, a social employee; two case managers; and a nurse.
Our nurse carried Narcan.
We coordinated with shelters, hospitals and metropolis businesses.
We did psychosocial assessments, led disaster intervention and made housing referrals.
We had been the precise variety of outreach crew that Mayor Mamdani’s administration is placing ahead as the resolution to New York’s homelessness disaster.
This is why I’m deeply involved about the mayor’s proposal.
Mamdani’s plan focuses on ending encampment sweeps and shifting to a housing-first method via his proposed Department of Community Safety, utilizing outreach groups with social employees to join people to supportive or rental housing and implementing disaster facilities in subway stations.
The mayor’s rhetoric fails to grapple with the actuality on the ground. I did this work. I believed in it. And I watched it fail the very people it was meant to help.
Seeing New York pursue that sort of initiative again violates my social and moral obligations each as an observant Jew and a social employee.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani makes a junk fees-related announcement at the Whitney Museum of American Art on January 21, 2026, in New York. Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Trying to help
The people I served had been women and men starting from age 18 to their 70s.
They included immigrants fleeing cartel violence, veterans, people lately launched from jail, people with extreme mental sickness, people with bodily disabilities, girls escaping abuse and LGBTQ youth rejected by their households.
My colleagues and I might stroll round sure homeless hubs and go into subway stations, hospitals, homeless shelters and parks, making an attempt to get the women and men who had no place of their own into housing.
Here are some of the tales, utilizing pseudonyms, to defend the shoppers:
* Mario was an 18-year-old who had been identified with schizophrenia a few years earlier than and had simply graduated from high faculty. He was from a staunchly spiritual Catholic household that kicked him out of the home when he disclosed he was homosexual. Mario had no employable expertise. He had been getting Social Security incapacity advantages that his dad and mom didn’t give him entry to, and he’d discovered his means to a males’s shelter, not realizing how to navigate the obligations of maturity between his schizophrenia and being on the spectrum. He disclosed that his mother did all the things for him and that his stepdad was verbally abusive; he wished to go back home as a result of he was bullied and harassed in the shelter and feared for his life, however his mom stated he couldn’t dwell along with his household as a result of he was homosexual.
* Julio was an 18-year-old who escaped his city in South America. He had watched his best pal die whereas treading water as they tried to come to the United States to escape the cartels who wished him to use the degree he hoped to receive in pharmacology to distribute medicine, all of which I realized by conducting a psychosocial examination utilizing a translator. He was decided to work, study English, receive asylum and escape the trauma he witnessed at home. He stored to himself in the shelter, fearing damage or death by different residents as a result of of his nationality and need to by no means take part in medicine.
* Olga, a Ukrainian girl nearing 40, whom we encountered residing on a park bench in Brooklyn, was an addict who stated that her ex had abused her whereas high. They determined to get remedy individually, leaving their daughter to be raised by her paternal grandmother as a result of it was safer for her. Unfortunately, Olga was nonetheless heavy into her habit. Although she accepted our offer to get her off the streets and into a girls’s shelter, she determined that our crew ought to advocate for her to regain custody of her daughter instantly, earlier than reaching sobriety, which she required to get into a household shelter the place her daughter can be secure. Olga stated to us that she needed her daughter to make her life higher, not to be certain that her daughter was secure. After a week in the shelter, she disappeared, and we searched the space the place we had encountered her, however couldn’t discover her.
* James, a black Army veteran in his 60s, whereas caring for his cancer-stricken spouse, entrusted his life financial savings, property and car to an previous Army buddy. His supposed pal then used his energy of lawyer to steal all of James’ possessions, leaving him with out a penny to his title as he handled the death of his spouse. He ended up in a shelter the place we encountered him and helped him get into a veterans home, as a result of the Department of Veterans Affairs failed him.
* Tony, a Caucasian man in his early 30s, lived in a household shelter along with his 8-year-old autistic daughter after his spouse died and he misplaced his job making an attempt to look after all of her wants alone. Tony discovered a job and, with the help of our crew, discovered housing close to his place of employment that allowed his daughter to attend the faculty that was assembly her wants after almost two years of being unhoused.
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* Antionette was a transgender black feminine in her late 20s whose household determined that, regardless of her quite a few bodily and mental health points, she may no longer be half of their lives as a result of she wished to dwell hers as a girl. Antionette was positioned in a males’s shelter as a result of she was born male and was assaulted by the different residents for having each female and male bodily attributes. We helped her receive housing vouchers, however it took months earlier than we discovered a place that was handicap-accessible and welcoming to her.
* John, a double amputee in his 50s, had misplaced his legs from diabetes and suffered from habit. He acquired round in a motorized wheelchair, however some of the males he shared a room with stole components of it, leaving him bed-bound.
* Mark, who was in his mid-20s, was launched to a supportive-living condo after spending a decade in jail. He ended up back behind bars after a month as a result of he couldn’t keep his mental health wants, even with help.
* Lloyd, a Jamaican man in his 50s, had been residing on the streets for more than 10 years. He refused to enter a shelter, even when the temperatures had been beneath freezing, as a result of of the violence he witnessed in them. “Get me a ticket home,” he’d repeat each time my crew and I approached him. “When my girlfriend and I broke up 15 years ago here in Brooklyn, she took my stuff, including my passport and money. I don’t want to go into a shelter or an apartment. I want a plane ticket to Jamaica.” He refused our help in getting housing and wouldn’t pay attention once we defined what he needed, equivalent to an ID, to get on a aircraft.
* Joseph, a Caucasian man in his late 20s, overdosed proper in entrance of me on a Friday morning. Our nurse, fortunately, was with the crew that day and administered Narcan, warning him of the risks of utilizing illicit substances. The following Monday, she had to administer it to him again.
* One cold winter day, my colleague and I had been on our break in her car in an space identified to be a homeless hub. The temperatures had been dangerously low once we encountered Olivia, a “lady of the night” standing on the nook sporting a bustier, underwear and sandals coated by an unbuttoned down coat. She complained that there was no “business” and that she couldn’t eat, however nonetheless refused our help once we provided food and shelter.
* At the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, we tried to help an 18-year-old black girl who admitted to being mentally ailing. She requested us to help her get an abortion and instructed us she was raped on the streets and couldn’t have a child as a result of she wasn’t steady and needed help. We acquired her admitted to the hospital, from which she disappeared after 24 hours. We couldn’t discover her, regardless of looking for her for a month.
Homeless encampment positioned underneath Guider Avenue overpass by the Belt Parkway in the Brighton Beach part of Brooklyn, New York. Paul Martinka
Equity of care
I may go on. Over the course of the yr, I entered many subway stations, hospitals, shelters and parks and even traveled to the notorious Wards Island with the categorical aim of getting people off the streets and into housing.
I encountered people surrounded by soiled needles, women and men who hadn’t bathed in months, and immigrants who sought sanctuary, all of whom hoped for a higher life.
I’m not arguing in opposition to compassion.
I’m arguing in opposition to phantasm.
To actually and successfully help those that reside on the streets, we need to improve mental health care, improve training round caring for the mentally ailing, develop applications to give adolescents and younger adults primary expertise to allow them to have jobs to help themselves — and, by doing so, help people thrive.
We need training for households caring for mentally ailing relations, so younger people like Mario aren’t deserted at 18 with no expertise and no help.
We need applications that educate adolescents and younger adults primary life and job expertise earlier than they fall into homelessness.
We need systems that acknowledge that equality of distribution is just not equity of care.
Mental health care can not thrive in a socialist setting.
Socialist systems have a tendency to prioritize uniformity and standardization to guarantee equality. Mental sickness, nevertheless, requires (1) extremely individualized remedy plans, (2) flexibility in frequency, modality and depth of care and (3) fast adjustment when signs change.
In a socialist society, mental health providers are rationed due to restricted sources. There are long waitlists for psychiatrists and remedy. Crisis care is prioritized over preventive care. There is proscribed entry to specialised clinicians.
As somebody who has handled these with extreme despair, psychosis or suicidality, delays should not inconvenient; they’re deadly. Therapy is just not interchangeable labor. A foul match can worsen signs.
As a social employee, I’m educated to look not solely at my shoppers, but in addition at the systems surrounding them. Human beings are formed by biology, psychology, setting, tradition and trauma. Ignoring anybody of these components leads to failure.
As an observant Jew, I’m guided by the commandment “Justice, justice you shall pursue.” Justice is just not performative compassion. It is just not ideological purity. It is just not insurance policies that sound humane whereas quietly abandoning those that can not conform to them.
Reprinted with permission from Tablet magazine.
