Freezing temps in the forecast mean more homeless deaths in the streets

This past Monday, thanks to the generosity of a few donors, St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue held a funeral for nine men who died on the streets of New York between December and February. Their bodies were unclaimed, and so their ashes were laid to rest in the church’s Resurrection Chapel. 

The city enjoyed balmy fall weather this week, but the winter is fast approaching, and with it the inevitable question of what to do about New Yorkers who “choose” to remain outside when the temperature drops.

Last year, at least 15 died from hypothermia, according to the city’s medical examiner, their bodies found on street corners from the East Village to Washington Heights to the Long Island Expressway. Most of them had previous interaction with homeless services. But the mayor continued to insist through blizzards and deep freezes that city workers could not force people into shelter. 

Many legislators at the time wondered how any police officer or social worker could have determined these people were sane enough to make their own decisions.

“How can a person refusing to come indoors in freezing weather, where they are obviously at great risk of dying, not be assessed to be a danger to themselves?” Council Speaker Julie Menin asked during a February hearing. Democratic Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who endorsed Mamdani for mayor, said that “being homeless shouldn’t be a death sentence… You can’t let the people stay out there. These are people in crisis.”

Indeed, a report released in August from the Department of Health and Social Services/Homeless Services found that of the 634 homeless residents who died between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, almost half lost their lives because of drugs and alcohol. Despite all the other health problems that people who spend their lives on the street might have, drugs were still the leading cause of death — and by a long shot. Drug-related fatalities accounted for 40 percent; heart disease the second most common cause, was only 12 percent. 

Unfortunately, the prevailing ideology governing New York’s policies (and those of many other major cities) is that drug use is either a disease that no one can cure or a lifestyle choice that no one should try to cure. We have embraced safe-injection sites where users can access drug paraphernalia and get healthcare, like covering open wounds resulting from drug use.

If you want to understand what is happening, follow Kevin Dahlgren on X. He has spent the past several years chronicling the lives of the homeless around the country as he tries to get them into shelters. Last week, he posted a video: “I witnessed an overdose death minutes after he received a ‘safe supply kit’ from Harm Reduction workers who then got coffee across the street.”

Many of New York’s deaths were of people who were not technically living on the street, but rather in the city’s homeless shelters, which suggests that even getting these folks indoors is not a panacea. We also have to be doing something about drug and alcohol addiction for people who are living in shelters.

Our shelters seem to have adopted a kind of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy when it comes to drugs. Residents are not supposed to be shooting up in the shelters, but there is plenty of evidence they do. Last year a child died in a homeless shelter of a viral infection. His parents were caught on camera just afterward hiding a bag with fentanyl and heroin in their car. Indeed, so-called family shelters are not immune from these problems. 

The Department of Social Services report notes that eight infants died last year while homeless. The report claims that they suffered from SIDS, but it’s more likely that many of their deaths were related to intoxication on the part of their parents — sleep deaths with a parent smothering a child or accidental ingestion of drugs are common in such cases. 

And last year — if the numbers can be trusted — was actually a low point for these fatalities. In the previous two years, there were 17. Since 2005, there have been 178. Even if we are operating under the assumption that adults are going to do what they want, what is our excuse for allowing children to die while living in city-run shelters, right under our noses? Shelter employees have every right to inspect rooms of residents on a regular basis. It’s a no-brainer to do it when there are children living on the premises. But even if there aren’t, the goal should be to help people get off drugs, not facilitate their habits or look the other way.

And while harm reduction is often framed as a policy that will promote “equity” — threatening people with incarceration or other consequences for crimes involving drug use is racist, we’re told — the truth is that the people who are disproportionately affected by our willful ignorance are racial minorities. African Americans accounted for a third of New York City homeless deaths despite only making up 22 percent of the city’s population and Hispanics make up 37 percent of the homeless deaths though they are only 29 percent of the city’s population.

When Mamdani was elected a year ago, he said: “Let City Hall, with our compassion, our conviction and our clarity, be the light that our city and our nation so desperately need.” We can only hope that when it comes to helping the homeless this winter, the mayor’s has a little more clarity about what compassion actually looks like. 

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.