In April, New York City’s new Democratic Socialist (communist) Mayor Zohran Mamdani, claimed that the city was facing a ‘historic’ budget crisis.
Now, he wants to spend $4.2 billion on services for the homeless. So which is it? Does a city in a budget crisis have that kind of cash to spend on homeless services?
Also, does anyone believe there will be any drop in the number of homeless people after he does this? The number could actually go up as a result once it becomes known that the city has money to burn on this.
The New York Post reports:
Mamdani wants to spend stunning $4.2B on NYC homeless services — more than during crippling migrant crisis
Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to spend more money on homeless services next year than his predecessor Eric Adams did during the height of the city’s migrant crisis — proposing a $4.2 billion budget for the agency in 2027.
Mamdani’s plan was rolled out in his latest budget proposal last week, which sought to hike the Department of Homeless Services’ budget by $700 million, from $3.5 billion for 2026 to the towering $4.2 billion sum.
That would be $100 million more than the $4.1 billion budget DHS hit in 2024, at the height of the migrant crisis when the city’s shelter system was housing a peak of about 69,000 asylum seekers.
Then-Mayor Adams had budgeted $2.4 billion for DHS in 2023 — but that number ended up rising to $3.5 billion as the new arrivals ramped up , straining the city system.
More than 230,000 asylum seekers ended up cycling through the Big Apple during the crisis, which began in the spring of 2022. The homeless services department budget was $2.3 billion that year, the first of Adams’ tenure.
How many people working to ‘solve’ the homeless problem will get rich off of this? We have seen that happen in Los Angeles and other cities.
That’s called money laundering. https://t.co/xJKgxyvBeY
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) May 22, 2026
Because social systems are the easiest to defraud. https://t.co/gXGwnjrAGD
— Tally2Jax (@youngduece77) May 22, 2026
Sounds like he’s using the California Fraud playbook https://t.co/63jS9qSyXH
— ROSST (@RosstD12) May 22, 2026
It’s difficult to imagine what New York City is going to look like a year from now.
People there are going to learn an important lesson about basic economics.
