The New York death toll rose to 18 over the weekend amid brutal freezing temperatures after 86-year-old Charles Williams was found dead just after 9 a.m. ET on Saturday.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed the death during a press conference for the opening of the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Brooklyn. “Each loss of a life is a tragedy. We will continue to hold their families in our thoughts,” he said.
Homeless shelter security worker Adam Faad found the 86-year-old unresponsive on East Gun Hill Road and Seymour Avenue in The Bronx. “I feel bad because I’m on my way to help homeless people, and I find this guy, and I couldn’t help him,” Faad told the New York Post.
Over the weekend, temperatures dropped as low as three degrees, with wind chill making it feel like 15 degrees below zero, the Post reported.
In response, Mamdani announced two additional warming centers that will open in Far Rockaway and in Washington Heights. He also increased the city’s warming buses from twenty-seven to thirty-three.
“What we’re doing at this time is doubling down on all of our efforts to connect any New Yorker who’s outside with shelter, with warmth, and with safety,” Mamdani said.
Despite opening additional warming centers, Mamdani faces backlash over his refusal to clear homeless encampments during the winter storm, which allows New York’s homeless to remain on the streets. Last year, he insisted on providing housing to the homeless. “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,” the NYC mayor said in December.
Former New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa says the “inhumanity is overwhelming” on the streets. Sliwa’s volunteer organization, The Guardian Angels, has been working on the streets since the storm took hold. “It has been sixteen days since the snow became ice and the brutally cold weather has set in. In these last two days, for the first time, I have come across homeless men and women without shoes.”
Sliwa described the situation as “survival of the fittest.” He said “stronger homeless individuals” threaten others to hand over their shoes. On the subway, he encountered a homeless man missing half of his foot. “They took his specially made shoe along with his other normal one. The inhumanity is overwhelming,” said Sliwa. He says he will continue to volunteer around the city with his organization, but has “yet to see any other outreach effort in action.”
New York City is facing its coldest winter in over twenty years. On Sunday, reports say New York City was colder than parts of Antarctica. Temperatures are expected to increase over the week, with forecasters reporting that the worst of the winter is over.
.png)
.png)
