The number of people to die on city streets this past week amid historic cold temperatures jumped to 13 as criticism grew on how Mayor Mamdani is handling the homeless during the crisis.
City Hall officials announced late Friday that the cold weather-related death toll since last Sunday’s massive snowstorm had increased from 10, though they didn’t provide details on where and when the new deaths occurred.
Calls to the NYPD about the increased tally on Saturday were directed to City Hall.
“We can confirm there have been 13 outdoor deaths since the start of the snow storm and this stretch of life-threatening cold weather,” a City Hall spokeswoman said in a statement Friday.
Weather-related deaths occurred across the five boroughs. The ages of the first 10 victims range from 40 to 90, officials said. More than half of the deaths occurred on Jan. 24, as the city prepared for the snowstorm and extreme cold.
One victim was found sprawled on the ground outside St. Barnabas Hospital, officials said. Another was found dead on a bench in Queens early Tuesday, hours after he bought a jar of peanut butter from a nearby Key Food on Francis Lewis Blvd. near 35th Ave. in Flushing.
“I go up to him and say, ‘Good morning, good morning,’” Luis Polanco, who manages the Key Food, told the Daily News. “He never responds.”
Polanco said the victim walked into his store with a bloody nose the night before he died.
“I asked if he needed help,” Polanco said. “I say, ‘You OK? You need to go somewhere? You need police?’ He said, ‘No, I’m OK.’”
As of Friday, the city’s Medical Examiner has yet to confirm if any of the victims died from extreme cold or other factors.
With the death toll rising, criticism has grown on how Mayor Mamdani has handled homeless encampments in the city. While the Adams administration made it a priority to clear the camps, Mamdani said in December that he was going to stop the sweeps of the encampments.
City Hall spokeswoman Dora Pekec told the New York Times on Friday that “none of these individuals were in encampments at the time of their death.”
Out of the first 10 victims, at least six had had interaction with the city’s Department of Homeless Services in the past, officials said.
Mamdani said earlier this week that the city was stepping up efforts to clear the streets of people at night amid the coldest weather conditions in eight years.
“When the cold is this deadly, we need to meet the moment and leave no stone unturned,” Mamdani said at a City Hall press conference on Tuesday.
“Our administration has intensified homeless outreach efforts and successfully made over 800 placements since the beginning of what could be the longest period of consecutive sub-32 degree days in city history,” the City Hall spokeswoman said Friday.
On Friday night, the city opened a new shelter and began utilizing ambulettes to roll around the city, approach unhoused New Yorkers and “encourage them to come into the unit for a meal and to warm up, and address any clinical needs,” the spokeswoman added.
The sub-freezing temperatures are expected to remain for the next several days.
