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City Hall is benching the NYPD.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is barring New York’s Finest from responding to any 311 complaints about the Big Apple’s homeless encampment mess, putting the entire burden on an understaffed and overworked Department of Social Services, sources close to the issue told The Post.
The move means cops have to sit on their hands until getting the green light — if they ever do.
“This is just crazy,” one source said. “[Cops] can’t help. They just have to wait for DSS … DSS doesn’t have the staff to investigate this.”
The decree from City Hall would expand the mayor’s already controversial approach to the filthy shantytowns that have popped up throughout the city in recent years, which prohibited the NYPD from clearing out the encampments for at least seven days while outreach workers sweet-talked vagrants.
Police officers were nonetheless responding to 311 complaints, even if they were handcuffed for a week — until an email to all NYPD ops on Tuesday that they would no longer respond to those calls, sources said.
According to the email, police officers who spot an encampment are now directed to call 311 themselves, then DSS and city Department of Homeless Services staffers take over, the sources said.
“It’s a gray area,” one source said.
Administration officials confirmed the shift.
“DHS outreach teams, not NYPD officers, will assess the reported location of the encampment and offer shelter and support to any individuals encountered in the area,” said a DSS spokesperson.
“In conjunction with this with this process change, we are updating DHS tracking systems to improve our ability to monitor encampments and improving geocoding and tracking so we are able to more efficiently respond to encampment conditions across the city.”
The NYPD will still be involved with sweeps when they happen, according to officials
Mamdani announced his intention to deal with the homeless crisis with kid gloves in late 2024, shortly before taking office — a radically different approach than that of his predecessor.
Former Mayor Eric Adams made clearing out tent cities a top priority after taking office in 2022.
“We cannot tolerate these makeshift, unsafe houses on the side of highways, in trees, in front of schools, in parks. This is just not acceptable, and it’s something I’m just not going to allow to happen,” Adams railed in March of 2022 when he kicked off a harder line initiative to deal with the homeless.
In start contrast, Mamdani took a hands-off approach to homeless shelters and encampments, even as the body count of vagrants claimed by harsh winter conditions mounted.
Unsightly homeless encampments have dotted the city over the past year, including a blocks-long shantytown near the Intrepid Museum on Manhattan’s West Side that went unchecked until The Post blew the whistle — with the city finally moving in to try to clear it out.
A filthy encampment also turned a stretch of the East Side under the FDR Drive into a trash heap, while an outdoor flophouse has overtaken the sidewalk in trendy Greenwich Village.
This week, a 30-foot-long shelter was spotted across the street from an NYU dorm.
City officials eventually cleared several of the camps, only to have the occupants move to another site.
However, the policy prohibited police from removing the shelters for at least seven days.
NYPD also confirmed the policy change.
“Any crime, traffic condition, or public safety issue will continue to be directed to the NYPD via 911,” a spokesperson said.
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