Eric Adams warned Zohran Mamdani to keep homelessness ‘under control’ – before mayor-elect said he’d end street encampment sweeps

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Monday that he warned his successor Zohran Mamdani to keep homelessness “under control” — even as the incoming administration announced it’ll stop breaking up street encampments.

“When we sat down and spoke, I told him how important it is to make sure that we keep the encampments and homelessness under control. That’s one of the top things you hear from New Yorkers,” Adams recalled on CNBC, apparently referring to his Dec. 2 sit-down with Mamdani.

The mayor-elect, just days later, publicly vowed that he’d put an end to the homeless encampment sweeps launched by the Adams administration in 2022.

Adams and other critics have slammed Mamdani’s plan, arguing its inhumane to let homeless people camp out on the streets and raising concerns about the makeshift shelters causing quality of life issues for New Yorkers and businesses.

“I went and visited those camps — stale food, human waste, drug paraphernalia, schizophrenic behavior,” Hizzoner told the hosts of the business news show “Squawk Box.”

“And so we need to understand that not only is it a humanitarian issue, but also as a business, you don’t want to walk out of your business, someone is sleeping in a tent,” he said of the city’s estimated 180 active encampments.

Adams said that he’s spoken with Mamdani “several times” since he was elected Nov. 4, through text message and during their Gracie Mansion meeting, about issues facing the city – underscoring homelessness as one of the most dire.  

Asked what his “takeaway” was given Mamdani’s public comments about street homelessness, Adams called out the Democratic Socialists of America, of which the incoming mayor is a member.

“Well, I think that he has a team of people he’s working with. As I stated, many people don’t know of the Democratic Socialists of America. They should read their agenda,” Adams said.

“They don’t believe there should be any prisons in our city. They don’t believe that you should do encampment enforcement. … They believe in decriminalizing prostitution after all that we’ve done,” he continued.

“If he (Mamdani) follows that agenda, we’re going to be having some real quality of life issues in our city.”