New York City is on the verge of a grim rebrand — Tent City, Filth City, maybe even Lepto City, a nod to leptospirosis, the bacterial disease increasingly linked to sprawling homeless encampments. And this descent into disorder isn’t accidental. It’s policy.
Under Zohran Mamdani, the New York Police Department has effectively been handcuffed, barred from shutting down encampments that are spreading across neighborhoods at an alarming pace. Mamdani telegraphed this approach back in December, and since then the results have been exactly what critics warned: more tents, more squalor, and more danger — for everyone.
The human cost is already visible. Between Friday, when a brutal winter storm slammed the city, and Sunday night, eight people were found dead outdoors, many believed to be homeless. Mamdani himself admitted that several were already known to the city’s shelter system — meaning help existed, but ideology got in the way.
5 homeless New Yorkers froze to death this weekend because Zohran Mamdani ended the sweeps of homeless off of the streets & left them out in the cold to die. pic.twitter.com/SGugU5Adhg
— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) January 26, 2026
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As encampments mushroom, frustrated residents do what New Yorkers are told to do: they call 311. But now those calls go nowhere. The NYPD is powerless. Even the city’s sanitation workers — “New York’s Strongest” — are forbidden from clearing encampments. Their orders? Remove garbage and human waste, but leave the tents, mattresses, clothing, and makeshift cardboard shanties untouched.
In other words: clean around the mess, but never solve it. Provide maid service for chaos.
Mayor Mamdani is asked what he plans to do about the homeless people currently living on NYC sidewalks in freezing weather.
He says he’s only been in office for a few weeks and has no real plan. He only offers platitudes.
The reporter notes that a homeless person told her he… pic.twitter.com/AsXcTgAPv4
— Paul A. Szypula ?? (@Bubblebathgirl) January 22, 2026
Queens City Councilwoman Joann Ariola, after watching this absurd ritual unfold along Jamaica Avenue, summed it up perfectly: “What next, a city-funded turndown service?”
She’s right — and every New Yorker should be outraged.
This isn’t compassion. It’s negligence masquerading as virtue. Mamdani shows endless sympathy for activists and encampments, but none for residents, workers, or small business owners forced to live with the consequences. Encampments don’t bring dignity or safety. They bring crime, filth, disease, and a steady erosion of basic street civility.
NYC cops, sanitation workers ordered to stop taking down homeless encampments weeks before 10 found dead in deep freeze. Read today's cover here: https://t.co/aF2m7MCvcu pic.twitter.com/DzmKTXMIkJ
— New York Post (@nypost) January 30, 2026
The danger doesn’t stop at filth and disorder. These encampments invite the return of diseases most Americans thought were relics of the past — including leptospirosis, a bacterial infection currently spreading through a homeless encampment in Berkeley, California. The disease is commonly found in rat urine but can also be transmitted through contaminated water, surfaces, or discarded items — exactly the kind of environment these encampments create.
What makes this even more damning is that outrage isn’t limited to conservatives. Even local Democrats are furious at Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to clear encampments. Gale Brewer, a City Council member representing the Upper West Side, said, “You cannot have defecating, you cannot have food on the street, you cannot have all these boxes.”
But so far, Mamdani says you can.
His predecessor, Eric Adams, was very aggressive in removing the encampments: “We cannot tolerate these makeshift, unsafe houses on the side of highways, in trees, in front of schools, in parks. This is just not acceptable.”
But Mamdani’s policy is all about the homeless and he doesn’t care about the general public: “We are going to take an approach that understands its mission is connecting those New Yorkers to housing.”
When your policies leave people freezing to death, neighborhoods rotting, diseases resurfacing, and your own party turning against you, the problem isn’t messaging. It’s leadership.
Mamdani’s approach doesn’t protect the homeless. It strands them in danger. It doesn’t uplift communities. It poisons them. And it doesn’t reflect empathy — it reflects an ideology so rigid that it ignores reality until reality starts killing people.
This isn’t progressive. It’s reckless. And New Yorkers are being forced to live with the consequences.
Adams said it best. He noted that there is nothing compassionate or “‘progressive’ about leaving people to freeze in makeshift encampments. It … dehumanizes the very people who need help.”
By the way, when you understand that chaos is the entire point of the early stages of socialist authoritarianism, a guy like Mamdani and his policies make perfect sense.
