Giuliani Warns of Looming Crisis Under Mamdani, Says Ending Homeless Encampment Sweeps Could Push New York Toward ‘Dangerous’ Future

By: Bob Meister

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is sounding an unmistakably dire alarm over the direction of America’s largest city, warning that New York faces what he calls an unprecedented public safety and humanitarian crisis under mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Post on Saturday, Giuliani argued that Mamdani’s signature pledge to halt the clearing of homeless encampments reflects a profound misunderstanding of mental illness, urban disorder, and the fragile equilibrium that keeps a city of eight million people functioning.

According to Giuliani, the policy shift is not merely misguided—it is potentially catastrophic. “The Big Apple will be a disaster,” he told The New York Post, predicting that Mamdani’s approach could unravel decades of hard-won progress in public safety and urban governance. At the heart of Giuliani’s concern is Mamdani’s opposition to so-called “sweeps” of homeless camps, a practice increasingly used by cities to manage sprawling encampments that often emerge in parks, sidewalks, and underpasses.

Giuliani, who presided over New York’s dramatic crime reduction in the 1990s, described the proposal as a “ticking time bomb,” particularly because of the complex mental health challenges faced by many individuals living on the streets.

Speaking candidly to The New York Post, Giuliani emphasized that a significant portion of the chronically homeless population suffers from severe mental illness, including paranoid schizophrenia. In his view, Mamdani’s plan to leave encampments untouched risks exacerbating the very conditions that drive instability and violence.

“The thing paranoid schizophrenics need is contact,” Giuliani said. “The therapy is constant talking, constant bringing them out.”

Allowing individuals with serious mental illness to retreat deeper into isolation, he warned, can have dire consequences. Giuliani painted a stark picture of how untreated mental illness can escalate in unsupervised environments.

“So think about it,” he continued in remarks to The New York Post, “the more they go inward that’s how they go from being a relatively safe person that first goes into homelessness to a killer five weeks later, five months later.”

In Giuliani’s estimation, the abandonment of encampment enforcement would not merely tolerate disorder but actively cultivate danger. “So he is going to produce… possibly the most dangerous thing a New York mayor has ever done,” Giuliani said, invoking memories of a city once paralyzed by fear.

Giuliani repeatedly compared Mamdani’s approach to policies pursued during the administration of the late Mayor David Dinkins, under whom violent crime surged to historic levels. As The New York Post report noted, Dinkins, like Mamdani, was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—a connection Giuliani cited as emblematic of what he sees as a recurring ideological error.

Under Dinkins, New York recorded more than 2,200 murders annually at its peak, a period Giuliani says left entire neighborhoods traumatized and hollowed out. When Giuliani took office in 1994, he implemented aggressive quality-of-life policing, expanded law enforcement presence, and pushed back against street disorder—strategies that later became models for cities worldwide.

Giuliani fears Mamdani’s rejection of encampment enforcement signals a return to policies that prioritize ideological purity over practical governance. “I fear dark days ahead for the city,” he told The New York Post, “days we haven’t seen since the early 1990s.”

Giuliani’s warnings come at a time when public opinion appears to be moving in the opposite direction of Mamdani’s platform. An August AP-NORC/Harris poll found that 43% of Americans favor clearing homeless encampments, compared to just 25% who oppose such measures. The data suggests that frustration with visible homelessness and street disorder has cut across ideological lines.

The legal landscape has also shifted. A 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed that cities may enforce bans on sleeping outdoors in public spaces. That ruling effectively removed one of the principal legal obstacles cited by activists opposing encampment clearings, giving municipalities broader authority to intervene.

Even leaders associated with the political left have embraced enforcement-based approaches. California Governor Gavin Newsom has supported policies leading to the removal of encampments across the state, while Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has overseen similar efforts in her city. Giuliani seized on these examples to argue that Mamdani is out of step not only with conservatives but with pragmatic Democrats as well.

While sharply critical of Mamdani, Giuliani reserved praise for outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat who, in Giuliani’s view, inherited a city in decline from his predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. Speaking to The New York Post, Giuliani said Adams had managed to stabilize New York after years of progressive experimentation.

“Adams has done a pretty good job,” Giuliani said, adding that the mayor has gotten the city “halfway back” to the levels of public safety enjoyed under Giuliani himself and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“That is not bad,” Giuliani quipped to The New York Post, “when you consider he’s got a City Council that should be in Red China.”

Giuliani also applauded Mamdani’s decision to retain NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, an Adams appointee widely viewed as a steady hand within the department. However, he expressed skepticism about how long the partnership would last.

According to Giuliani, Mamdani’s biggest obstacle may not be his own inclinations but the ideological forces surrounding him. Giuliani believes the mayor-elect faces intense pressure from the Democratic Socialists of America and other far-left factions to adopt a soft-on-crime agenda.

“Even if he wants to be reasonable—which I am not sure he does—they are going to bang him,” Giuliani said, suggesting that internal party dynamics could override public safety considerations.

The former mayor warned that concessions to these groups could undermine policing, weaken enforcement, and embolden criminal behavior, especially in neighborhoods already grappling with homelessness, addiction, and mental illness.

Though Giuliani now resides in Palm Beach, Florida, he told The New York Post that he remains closely connected to New York, visiting frequently. Just two weeks ago, he said, he returned to attend the opera.

“It still looks pretty good,” Giuliani acknowledged. “Adams did some good things, you know?”

He offered a measured assessment of the city’s current condition, describing it as imperfect but far from the chaos of decades past. “The city’s not bad right now,” Giuliani said. “It isn’t the city that it was when Bloomberg gave it to de Blasio, or I gave it to Bloomberg, but it’s nowhere as bad as when Dinkins gave it to me.”

Still, Giuliani’s optimism ended there. “I’m just really very concerned about what will happen next,” he told The New York Post.

As of publication, Mamdani’s office had not returned requests for comment, according to The New York Post. The absence of a response has only intensified scrutiny as New Yorkers brace for a transition that could redefine how the city confronts homelessness, mental illness, and public order.

Giuliani’s stark warnings reflect more than nostalgia for an earlier era. They underscore a fundamental debate now facing New York: whether compassion is best expressed through tolerance and nonintervention, or through enforcement paired with treatment and accountability.

The stakes could not be higher. For Giuliani, the issue is existential. “New York,” he warned, “has been here before—and we all know how that ended.”