47 Organizations Issue Blueprint for Mayor Mamdani’s New Office of Community Safety

Ahead of Mamdani’s executive budget, coalition demands meaningful authority over NYPD, investments in services, and binding commitments for change

NEW YORK — Today, a coalition of almost 50 organizations, including mental health providers, civil rights groups, legal services, religious, community, youth and immigration organizations cosigned a letter to Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Deputy Mayor of Community Safety Renita Francois, providing a blueprint for the Office of Community Safety in order to have a truly transformative impact on public safety. 

The letter was sent in advance of the release of the Mayor’s executive budget, now due May 12, which will shed more light on the direction of the new office after being excluded from the preliminary budget in February, leaving its priorities unclear.

“For far too long, the City’s approach to these critical public health issues has been characterized by criminalization and police intervention – an ineffective, costly and harmful approach that often results in unnecessary violence and worsening outcomes for the very people who need care, support and a vast array of social services, including housing,” the letter states. “New York’s most vulnerable communities, including Black, brown and immigrant communities, bear the brunt of this harm and would greatly benefit from a different approach.”

The coalition listed best practices and principles for non-police response and policy areas that the Administration should focus on in order to ensure effective implementation, including:

1. Build a robust system of culturally competent, non-police crisis response teams with leadership from communities, service providers and experts;

2. Establish authority to drive accountability and alignment, including meaningful authority over the NYPD;

3. Align broader policies to prioritize effective interventions, while ending ineffective criminalization approaches including sweeps of homeless encampments and rising court cases for sleeping on the subway, arrest surges on low-level drug charges, and continued aggressive broken windows enforcement;

4. Transform call triage and dispatch systems for 911, 311 and 988; and

5. Invest in care, prevention, and community-based support, including Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) teams, IMT step down, crisis stabilization centers, respite centers, community-based behavioral health services, and low-barrier housing.

“As long as the City continues sending armed officers as first responders, we are endangering the most vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Loyda Colón (they/them), Executive Director of Justice Committee. “Mental health, substance use, and homelessness are not public safety issues, and they never should have been treated as such. Mayor Mamdani’s new Office of Community Safety is a necessary acknowledgement that our current system is failing New Yorkers, but it falls dangerously short without dismantling armed police response. Expanding the failed B-HEARD program is case in point: the vast majority of calls are routed to police, teams often fail to meet best practices, and the overreliance on traumatizing involuntary hospitalizations leaves people disconnected from their communities and the long-term care they need. We need to see significant investments in preventative and post-crisis care, accessible services, housing, and other non-punitive approaches alongside the removal of NYPD from crisis response in order to see and experience real systemic change.” 

“When I called for help for a family member in crisis I didn’t have any options and only the police showed up. They came in guns drawn and the situation almost ended up in a death,” said Susan Shervington, a community leader at VOCAL-NY. “When I call for a mental health crisis, I’m calling for a non-police response – so that people with mental health expertise and experience deescalating these specific types of incidents can respond. I’m hoping that the Mayor will listen to those of us with lived experience and change the way the City handles these issues to prevent more harm and even deaths.” 

"In March, a large group of New York's leading civil rights advocates gathered at City Hall to celebrate the announcement of the Office of Community Safety, recognizing that it was an important first step towards a more serious overhaul of how this administration will approach public safety. With Mayor Mamdani's first budget approaching, we want to make clear that we want to see a robust Department of Community Safety that will bring the resources and attention to crisis response that the people of this city deserve, have been asking for, and were promised by Mayor Mamdani during his candidacy,” said Janos Marton, Chief Advocacy Officer, Dream.Org. 

BACKGROUND:

Then-candidate Mamdani campaigned on the idea of creating a non-police response team as a part of his public safety plan, entitled the Department of Community Safety. Last year, Councilmember Restler introduced legislation to create this agency, and in January, a mix of more than 30 service providers and legal, advocacy and anti-violence groups cosigned a letter calling for a hearing on legislation to create a Department of Community Safety. In March, Mayor Mamdani signed an executive order establishing the Office of Community Safety as a first step toward realizing his plans for a Department, appointing Renita Francois to oversee  gun violence prevention, mental health and substance abuse treatment, hate crime prevention, victims services, and subway safety as Deputy Mayor.

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