NYC’s Zohran Mamdani and LA’s Nithya Raman reveal their coldness toward the homeless

The unclaimed bodies of nine homeless New Yorkers who froze to death during the coldest weeks of our brutal 2025-26 winter were laid to rest this week at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue.

Conspicuous by his absence was Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose homeless policies played a key role in those deaths.

Last winter served as one of the first real tests of the mayor’s political soul. Would he live up to his pledge to protect the marginalized? To make the city better for all New Yorkers?

As horrified citizens watched their homeless neighbors freeze and die on the streets, it became clear the mayor would not.

The cold took the lives of New Yorker after New Yorker, as the mayor stood by his policy of refusing to break up encampments and forcing the homeless indoors only as a “last resort.”

So much for the “warmth of collectivism” Mamdani touted in his inauguration speech. 

After his election, the mayor deployed what is now standard progressive policy around the homeless: Let their encampments stay in place, no matter how high the human cost.

That cost is usually counted in increased substance abuse and crime, including sexual assault, the victims of which are frequently other homeless people.

But in the winter, that cost rose as the cold came and stayed for weeks: In all, 18 homeless people froze to death.

Thanks to the efforts of Rhonda Roland Shearer, a sculptor also known for her relief work, the unclaimed dead have now received some measure of the dignity denied them.

But it’s hard to imagine a clearer picture of progressive “compassion” than the mayor’s refusal to show his face.

Perhaps Mamdani was afraid of criticism. He’s allegedly become thin-skinned and hypersensitive since he arrived in office and, for the first time, experienced the adult world of accountability for one’s professional actions.

And he was given a well-deserved cold shoulder at another funeral — for a US soldier killed by the regime in Tehran.

Or perhaps he simply couldn’t be bothered. Don’t forget: There are TikToks to be filmed.

Of course, for Mamdani and his allies, the persistence of homeless encampments is a political necessity, as well as an ideological preference.

How else to justify the $4.2 billion he proposes to spend on homeless services in fiscal 2027 — more than what the migrant crisis cost the city at its peak?

In that, he resembles Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman.

Raman is the best friend of the homeless-industrial complex, a network of nonprofits that hoover up tax dollars and spend it purportedly on services for the chronically homeless.

In fact, the money goes largely to fund the nonprofits themselves — when it isn’t being swiped by fraudsters like Michael Young, who allegedly stole $7.5 million and spent it on building a nightclub and a bingo hall, or Alexander Soofer, who stole $2 million to fund his luxury lifestyle.

Raman, while serving as chair of the LA City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, turned on the spigot, notoriously setting aside almost $63 million for a housing push that placed only three households.

The city’s homeless agency was barred from getting federal grants in June after an audit revealed it failed to verify nearly 2,300 housing sites in its purview — and the vast majority of contracts tied to those sites were inactive.

Small wonder LA’s problem got worse on her watch, with the homeless population rising to 45,194, a 3.4% spike over last year, as of this summer.

And LA’s next mayor has already made it clear she has no intention of ending LA’s encampment nightmare, voting this week against a law that would ban such sites in public places like beaches and pedestrian tunnels.

Whatever this is, it’s not compassion. Homeless people suffering from addiction need treatment; homeless people suffering from mental illness need, in some cases, civil commitment.

Not indifference masquerading as kindness.

To provide healthy environments for the public, cities need clean and orderly public spaces as well.

Even the Mamdanis and Ramans of the world know this — as witness Raman’s fear and anxiety when activists set up a fake encampment on the sidewalk near her home.

New York may be set for a mild winter this year. LA may enjoy near-tropical weather year-round.

But that doesn’t make Mamdani and Raman’s policies any less cold.

Sam Munson’s most recent novel is “The Sofa” (2025).