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Patriot Brief

• NYC mayor-elect vows to halt homeless encampment cleanups in favor of vague housing promises.

• Critics warn policy abandons homeless to unsafe conditions without treatment or accountability.

• Homelessness surged 53% as city grapples with illegal immigration and failed governance.

Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to clear homeless encampments isn’t compassion — it’s ideological neglect masquerading as empathy. Promising to “connect people to housing” while leaving them in tents, exposed to addiction, violence, and winter weather, is not a plan. It’s a slogan. New York has already tested this model, and the results are visible on every sidewalk: more disorder, more suffering, and fewer people actually receiving help.

Inna Vernikov’s criticism cuts through the moral posturing. Leaving the homeless on the streets without mandatory shelter, treatment, or intervention doesn’t protect their dignity — it guarantees their decline. And it’s easy to champion this approach when you live far from the encampments your policies create.

With homelessness exploding and city resources overwhelmed, refusing to enforce basic public order is a choice — and it’s a destructive one. Mamdani isn’t fixing homelessness. He’s institutionalizing it.

From Western Journal:

New York City Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vowed to avoid cleaning up homeless encampments, prompting Republican New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov to rebuke the policy.

Mamdani said on Dec. 4 that he would not remove the encampments, instead claiming that he would connect the homeless with housing resources.

“If you are not connecting homeless New Yorkers to the housing that they so desperately need, then you cannot deem anything you’re doing to be a success,” Mamdani said.

“We are going to take an approach that understands its mission is connecting those New Yorkers to housing, whether it’s supportive housing, whether it’s rental housing, whatever kind of housing it is,” he added.

“Because what we have seen is the treatment of homelessness as if it is a natural part of living in this city, when in fact it’s more often a reflection of a political choice being made time and time again.”

Vernikov contended on social media platform X that while Mamdani floated a seemingly compassionate policy, the result would be homeless people suffering without badly needed care.

“The radical left communists would rather the homeless freeze to death on the streets, live in tents without showers food or medicine than make sure they have PROPER housing and mental health treatment which many of them desperately need,” she wrote.

The radical left communists would rather the homeless freeze to death on the streets, live in tents without showers food or medicine than make sure they have PROPER housing and mental health treatment which many of them desperately need. After all, most Mamdani voters are rich… https://t.co/BTkG5mZ3Gp

— Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (@InnaVernikov) December 4, 2025

Vernikov asserted that many Mamdani voters are disconnected from the reality of homelessness, or that letting the homeless do as they please is part of their broader guilt-driven social justice project.

“After all, most Mamdani voters are rich entitled liberals who never have to struggle and who believe that leaving the homeless on our streets in their tents is also appropriate PUNISHMENT for our ‘intolerant and racist’ neighborhoods,” she continued.

Vernikov closed with the warning, “BRACE YOURSELVES.”

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