Michael Goodwin: Mamdani’s socialist policies give nothing but a cold shoulder. Look no further than NYC’s new homeless hellscape

In the most memorable and troubling line of his inaugural address, Mayor Mamdani vowed to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

But as temperatures approach 100 degrees, most New Yorkers would surely welcome some “frigidity” of any kind.

They are out of luck, because even the heat wave has become another excuse for the socialist mayor to unleash more of his warmth of collectivism.

The plain English translation is that he’s building a vastly bigger and strikingly more expensive government.

The evidence is that city-owned buildings are bursting with an alphabet soup of new agencies, some of which lack a clear purpose.

Because even the weather apparently has capitalist roots, the Boy Wonder’s office has been pumping out a stream of overheated promises that the Mommy State is here to help.

Mamdani is so generous with taxpayer dollars that he will even deliver cold air to you if you don’t have it or can’t find any on your own.

During the heat wave two weeks ago, he crowed in a TV interview that “what we’re bringing for the first time in city history are a number of vans that are both providing New Yorkers in need with water, with electrolytes, with a cool place to be, as well as with transport to cooling centers.”

One thing he didn’t have then and still doesn’t is a plan for dismantling homeless shantytowns, especially the enormous one spreading over a series of blocks on the far West Side, near the Intrepid Museum.

He just doesn’t care

As The Post has been showing in graphic detail since Friday, the mayor doesn’t seem to care about the unholy mess, the people living in it or area businesses, residents and tourists.

On Monday, he blew off a question about the hellhole, saying: “We’re focused on connecting New Yorkers to shelter and on establishing a pipeline to stable housing, not just moving New Yorkers from one place to another.”

As an afterthought, he added, “To this specific encampment that you brought up, we’re going to look into the details of that.”

Apparently he’s still looking because there was no action by Tuesday.

But the camp is growing and reporters on the scene saw a squatter tap into utility lines.

Police officers unplugged the tie-up, but otherwise were apparently ordered just to stand around and be spectators.

Because rising temperatures often spark a rise in violence, Mamdani also has a Big & Bigger Government plan for that, too.

His minions announced what they dubbed “a whole-of-government strategy to keep New Yorkers safe.”

This feat of leftist magic will be the result of “prevention, intervention and survivor support” during World Cup events and throughout the summer, City Hall promises.

That sounds like a job for the NYPD, which, no thanks to Mamdani, is by far the finest police force in America.

But showing he hasn’t entirely grown out of his “defund” attitude, he still sees cops as an afterthought, if not the actual cause of violence.

More important than the police for the summer safety plan, according to the city’s hyperventilating press release, is a “Youth Listening Tour” and the fact that “more than 1,000 young people” are enrolled in the City’s Anti-Gun Violence Employment Program.

With a public-school population of about 900,000 students, getting just 1,000 in an anti-gun program doesn’t sound like something worth bragging about.

As if throwing a bloated bureaucracy at the problem will stop the mayhem, the administration also touts something it calls “evidence-based violence prevention efforts through the City’s Crisis Management System.”

In a statement so mushy and vague that it sounds like a leftover from a bad political campaign ad, City Hall promises that “providers are increasing outreach, neighborhood canvassing and on-call staffing to align with documented patterns of summer violence, ensuring more trained responders are present during evenings, weekends and holidays.”

And if they arrive after the bloodshed, Mamdani promises a “72-hour shooting-response protocol to rapidly support victims, families and communities in the aftermath of gun violence.”

In plain English, what the hell does all that mean?

Are the bureaucrats coming to help clean up the blood, or are they there just to stand around and sing the praises of government to grieving families and the media?

Agency after agency

Then there’s the Office of Community Safety, another Mamdani creation that aims to “coordinate with agencies across City government on a Know Your Rights campaign to ensure New Yorkers and visitors have access to important public safety information about ‘Gender-Based violence and human trafficking.’ ”

The purpose of this new and growing bureaucracy is said to be “to complement the NYPD’s efforts to deliver the fewest shooting incidents, shooting victims and murders for the first half of the year.”

That is in fact the only mention of the NYPD in a long, winding press release about stopping violence.

Chief among the things left unsaid is that Mamdani canceled plans to hire as many as 5,000 more police officers, and instead created the squishy Office of Community Safety, which was designed to promote a “non-law-enforcement response.”

So if you get mugged or shot, do you want the city to send a bureaucrat or a cop? As the police force continues to shrink and the army of bureaucrats grows, the consequences are inevitable.

The price tag for this splurge in new and expanded programs is staggering, and there is no end in sight.

The budget for the current fiscal year is $127 billion, a cool $10 billion more than last year’s.

As if to underscore that more and more government is City Hall’s answer to everything, the mayor’s office on Tuesday announced a new, $67 million program to bring special education and disability programs to 3-K and pre-K schools in 14 districts and all five boroughs.

Scores of speech therapists, psychologists, social workers and aides will be hired, leading Chancellor Kamar Samuels and others to shower the program with praise.

Spend, spend, spend!

It’s no coincidence that nearly everyone quoted in the press release stayed on message by uniformly calling the program “an investment” in the future.

It’s too clever by half, but City Hall shouldn’t assume the scripted use of the “i” word — instead of simply saying spending — will impress Wall Street credit-rating agencies.

They already downgraded the city’s fiscal outlook from stable to negative because of huge recurring deficits in this and future years’ budgets.

For the same reasons, the bid by members of the City Council to give themselves an 18% raise deserves a cold shoulder.

What kind of employee seeks a job, then, after getting it, suddenly demands an 18% raise.

Answer: Only a government ­employee in a socialist administration.