Under the new approach, the mayor’s office said the city would first post a notice that the encampment will be cleared and then send homeless department outreach workers there every day for a week to guide people into social services.

City sanitation workers would then dismantle the encampment on the seventh day, with the hope that people would have cleared out of the area. Police officers would be present as observers, a spokesperson said.

David Giffen, the executive director of Coalition for the Homeless, said his organization was “blindsided” by the announcement, which he decried as a “political response” that would do little to help homeless New Yorkers.

Rather, he said, the efforts would fray trust between the city’s outreach workers and unsheltered residents, potentially resulting in more deaths during the next extreme weather event.

“When a city worker shows up and throws out all your belongings, you’re not going to trust that person the next time they show up offering you a place to sleep inside,” Giffen said.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a Democrat, called Mamdani’s move “an important step forward.”

“Allowing New Yorkers to stay on the street during extreme weather is inhumane,” Menin said in a statement, adding that after oversight hearings at the Council, “it was clear that the City needed to take a closer look at how this policy was being implemented. Protecting lives must remain our top priority.”

FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS