\n<\/p>\n
The severe winter weather sweeping across the Northeast pushed New York\u2019s homeless death toll to nineteen on Thursday. New York City mayoral candidate and long time New Yorker, Curtis Sliwa, attributes the crisis to the city\u2019s status as a \u201csanctuary\u201d jurisdiction for illegal aliens \u2014 and says he\u2019s \u201cnever seen it worse.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The massive influx of illegals during former President Joe Biden\u2019s term \u2014 a fair number of whom were transported to sanctuary cities \u2014 put a strain on the already limited resources available to house the city\u2019s homeless population, and Sliwa argued that has brought the crisis to a breaking point.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m watching emotionally disturbed persons and homeless people exhibit Darwinian traits. Survival of the fittest,\u201d Sliwa said. He described encountering a homeless man with no shoes who was missing half of his foot. The man told Sliwa that both his shoes, including the one specially made for his disability, had been stolen by the \u201cstronger\u201d homeless. Sliwa told the Daily Wire he and his nonprofit the Guardian Angels have encountered many grim scenarios while attempting to help the homeless through the winter spell.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sliwa said the crisis did not begin with the election of New York\u2019s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but with the previous administration under Democrat Eric Adams. \u201cA lot of this is the result of Eric Adams\u2019 failures as mayor, in which he housed a lot of the migrants, at the expense of our own homeless,\u201d he said. \u201cThey spent $7 billion housing migrants that we didn\u2019t even know in hotels, motels, giving them lodging, food, clothing. Okay. But we weren\u2019t doing likewise with our own homeless and more importantly, the emotionally disturbed who should have been brought to mental health care hospitals because they clearly are a danger to themselves and everyone else.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In fiscal years 2024 and 2025, New York city spent $6.77 billion on funding for people seeking asylum in the United States. Financial support ranged from housing in shelters and New York hotels, prepaid debit cards to families in hotel-based, non-congregate shelters for food, legal and medical services, and relocation assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sliwa says it\u2019s New York\u2019s homeless who end up paying the price. \u201cNow we\u2019re beginning to pay the price that our own homeless, who are out on their own for many months, many years as a result of the priority being the migrants.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n However, Sliwa did not entirely excuse Mamdani.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t see any of the homeless outreach workers that the mayor keeps talking about,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s critics however argue\u00a0 the newly appointed mayor\u2019s end to end encampment sweeps has contributed to the rising death toll. Brian Stettin, a senior adviser in the Adams\u2019 administration, <\/span>told<\/span><\/a> the New York Post, \u201cWhen a person is in imminent danger, there is no debate. Whatever ideological divides we should not have any impact on these policies during a \u2018Code Blue.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sliwa added that his organization\u2019s hands are tied. \u201cWe\u2019re just citizens,\u201d he said, noting the Guardian Angels cannot carry out involuntary removals to bring people indoors. \u201cThat has to be done by the city, the police department, and other agencies\u2014but they\u2019re just not doing that.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n