The Deadly Consequences Of Zohran Mamdani’s Homelessness Policy

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show.

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Zohran Mamdani just made a really sad and totally predictable announcement.

When the recent winter cold front made it to New York, it was not nearly as bad as the ice storm Nashville residents experienced. There was very little ice in New York, mostly just snow. Nevertheless, 16 homeless New Yorkers died during that brief little cold snap.

Here is the new mayor of New York:

Mayor Mamdani confirms sixteen deaths during dangerously cold weather in NYC https://t.co/pQ0L9i5Yzz pic.twitter.com/zHAPfvu95u

— New York Post (@nypost) February 2, 2026

Credit: @nypost/X.com

Mayor Mamdani says,

A severe cold front continues to bear down on our city. Today is our 11th consecutive day of below freezing weather, and we could very well be in the middle of the longest period of consecutive sub-32-degree weather in our city’s entire history. Without temperatures rising above freezing, snow has hardened into blocks of ice. But the greatest danger posed by the sustained cold is to vulnerable New Yorkers who remain exposed to the elements. As of this morning, 16 of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold. In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths. We await final results from the medical examiner’s office and will inform New Yorkers as we learn more. Each of these lives lost is a tragedy. My heart was with the family of those mourning their loved ones.

Mamdani blames the deaths mostly on nature, though he admits a few of them were drug deaths. 

Unlike other areas of the country where recent ice storms knocked out power for weeks, New York City is built for cold weather. Cold weather hits New York every single year. New Yorkers knows how to deal with cold weather, especially when they have competent management and government.

The people who died in New York did not die because their power went out. New York didn’t lose power. They died because they were left to die on the streets. Why were they left to die on the streets? Is this just some immutable characteristic of New York? What can we do? Throw our arms up in the air? A long-standing problem?

No, it’s not.

They were left to die on the streets specifically because Zohran Mamdani, who has been in office for just one month now, left them to die on the streets. In fact campaigned to leave them to die on the streets.

Don’t take my word for it. Here is CBS News.

Credit: @CBSNewYork/YouTube.com

The reporter states,

Local New York Mayor Alexander Mamdani says that he will end the Adams administration’s practice of removing homeless encampments from city sidewalks. But advocates argue it will be a step backwards for the city’s quality of life. Ali Bauman questioned the mayor-elect about this tonight. For the past three years, the NYPD has been systematically removing homeless encampments from New York City sidewalks, a practice mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani vows to end once he takes office — vows to end it.

This is Mamdani campaigning and saying we are intentionally going to leave the homeless — who are almost entirely drug addicts and mentally ill — on the streets. And this is supposedly going to be compassionate. That’s a change of policy from the previous administration, which just left office.

A little history of New York City during the 1970s and 80s may be helpful. Back then, there were a lot of bums, a lot of criminals, and a lot of homeless people on the streets. Then-mayor Rudy Giuliani came in in the 1990s and got rid of all that. He said, No, no, no — if you’re homeless, you need to go to shelters or we’re going to arrest you, but we’re not going to leave you on the streets.

After he was mayor of New York, Giuliani reiterated the same idea about the Occupy Wall Street protests. When people set up encampments all over the city, he said, No, no, no, you can’t do this. Sleeping on the street is a dysfunctional act which harms society and the individual.

In other words, letting the homeless stay on the street is contrary to the common good.

It’s not just that letting the homeless stay on the street is good for the homeless but bad for the rest of the New Yorkers who don’t want to see them — that’s how Mamdani is presenting it. The real argument, however, is no, it’s actually bad for everyone. Because it’s bad for the law-abiding New Yorkers who don’t want criminals and drug addicts and crazy people running around the streets all the time.

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It’s also bad for the homeless because they’re susceptible to crime — susceptible to being assaulted or raped or killed. And they’re also vulnerable to the elements. It’s very, very dangerous to leave them on the streets year round, especially in the winter. And now we see the results.  This is the “warmth of collectivism.”

This is the compassion that Mamdani has promised. Leaving 16 New Yorkers dead during a totally predictable, minor cold front. And he even gives away the game in his speech by trying to mitigate his culpability by saying, “In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role, and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”

They basically froze like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining.”

He then seems to avoid taking responsibility by saying, “…and three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.”

Like that’s better. Like it’s good that they chose to die, as if they were consenting adults. First of all, you can’t consent when you’re crazy, or when you’re addicted to all kinds of vices, or when you’re underage, or when there are all sorts of things that compromise our consent.

So Mayor Mamdani’s whole policy is based on a misconception of freedom — what freedom really is. Like all liberals, he thinks freedom is just neutrality in choosing. Well, some people choose not to do heroin, but some people choose to do heroin, and who are we to say which is the better choice?

It’s a misconception of freedom. It’s a misconception of the common good. It’s a misconception of what’s good for everybody. The common good is not just the random collection of all the individual goods of people, some of which are contrary to each other. In this kind of utilitarian calculation that tries to lead to the greatest utility for the greatest number, the common good is what we all share — what is good for all of us, what is not diminished by any individual good.

It’s also a misunderstanding of compassion. It is not compassionate to just ignore people. It’s funny because the Left accuses the Right of this: you just ignore people. You retreat to your nice neighborhoods and your penthouses and your money, and you ignore your common man. You don’t think you’re your brother’s keeper.

Sometimes the Right is guilty of that, especially the more Libertarian Right. The Left is just as guilty of that. Oh, just leave people to their degradation. Leave people to their vices. Leave people to their destructive behaviors — be it sexual ideologies, be it just license more broadly, be it with regard to living on the street — just leave them there.

It’s fine. You know, who are you to intervene? Who am I?

Well, I’m a reasonable person, and I’m a member of society, and I’m a citizen. And the consequences of all three of those misconceptions from Zohran Mamdani are that 16 people die on the street, whether from drugs or from exposure. That’s the “warmth of collectivism.”

What would have been more compassionate for the homeless: Zohran Mamdani, who says all sorts of sweet things about the homeless and leaves them to die on the street, or Rudy Giuliani, who talks a little tougher, who seems a little bit meaner, but who protects those people?

Where’s the real compassion?

That’s it. We’re one month into Mamdani — one month in — and you’ve got homeless ice cubes lining the streets of New York, some of which also have heroin and fentanyl in their blood.

We’re in for a real treat with Mamdani.