Photo: Tzim78 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday a citywide winter mobilization that includes $25 million in new city funding for an expanded Code Blue system, which sends outreach teams, medical units and warming sites to people outside during cold snaps, along with a larger snow and ice clearing operation.
The photograph shows a Sanitation Department snowplow in Manhattan after the February 2026 storm. It is an archival photo, not from Monday’s announcement.
The city said the upgraded Code Blue system will scale up with the severity and length of cold, snow and ice. The measures include:
- More than 300 additional canvassers on set walking and driving routes in all five boroughs, covering 75% of locations where homeless New Yorkers are known to stay.
- Up to 55 NYC Health + Hospitals WARM mobile units, each with a nurse or nurse practitioner, to provide medical support and transport to warming centers.
- At least three H+H hospitals open as warming centers, and all 11 facilities during the most severe weather. At the peak level, the Department of Homeless Services will activate eight drop-in centers, four new warming centers and 20 warming buses.
- More than 600 new single and double rooms, creating 800 low-barrier shelter beds, and extended overnight hours at four syringe service providers.
On snow, the Department of Sanitation said it has more than 2,200 vehicles ready to be turned into plows, more than 700 salt spreaders, 47 pieces of specialized equipment for protected bike lanes and 7,000 uniformed workers trained for snow clearing. The agency has added every bus stop, sidewalk and crosswalk to its internal route maps and set new forecast triggers.
Last winter the city ran its first 24-hour Enhanced Code Blue activation, opening new warming shelters and deploying warming buses, the mayor’s office said. Why it matters: the plan sets out in advance what the city will deploy for homeless New Yorkers and for street clearing as the first cold weather of the season approaches. Still unknown: when the first activation will come, and how the city will measure whether the expanded outreach reaches more people.
JBizNews Desk | New York, N.Y.
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
