Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced questions about reports of a growing homeless population along a prime strip of real estate on Manhattan’s West Side. On West 46th Street, encampments complete with shelves, storage bins and makeshift shades can be found. The setups made for front-page news over the w eekend, as one of the city’s tabloids said vagrants at a sprawling new encampment have been praising Mamdani’s more caring approach when it comes to homelessness, while local vendors seethed. “We are focused on connecting New Yorkers to shelter, and on establishing a pipeline to stable housing. Not just moving New Yorkers from one place to another place,” the mayor said Monday. During his campaign, Mamdani vowed that as mayor he would put a stop to the city’s practice of busting up encampments without making sure the occupants have someplace appropriate to go. This week, he defended his administration’s approach, which has been to put social workers from the city’s Department of Homeless Services in charge of outreach — rather than police. Those social workers would engage with occupants for seven days in a row before sweeping away their stuff. When asked Monday about the reports of the sprawling homelessness on the West Side, the mayor said his administration would “look into” the specific encampment. He was also asked why the camps on the West Side persist, despite 311 calls dating back far more than seven days. While the newspaper described a large, 12-block-long problem, NBC New York was only able to find a few scattered encampments on side streets on Tuesday. “Outreach workers have to be able to offer people something that they will accept. What we’ve seen is what people will accept is housing or a lower barrier shelter that is seen as a short-term bridge to housing. And we don’t have enough of either of those things,” said Josh Goldfein, of the Legal Aid Society. When asked about the homelessness problem, Mamdani said part of the problem is the “long history” that some of those New Yorkers have had with being “let down by government” in previous administrations. “We are looking to convince them, in fact, that now it will be different. And the best way to do so is by proving that in the services we deliver. I think that we’ve made steps to that end. I think there’s always more to be done,” Mamdani said. Some dispute that the encampments were ever as bad as reported. “There was no 12-block long encampment. That’s a complete lie,” said Helen Strom, of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, which works with street homeless in the area. However, the neighborhood’s new City Councilmember Carl Wilson said, “these encampments are completely unacceptable. My office has repeatedly demanded that city agencies step up their response by connecting people with supportive services while ensuring our streets remain clean and safe for our residents.” The question remains whether the mayor’s approach will work. “It’s great that the mayor is acknowledging what we should do. Now they have to do it,” said Goldfein. A spokesman for the police department said “the NYPD has not been given the green light to clean this encampment up, but we are ready to do so.” ...read more read less