Deadly cold tests New York’s ability to protect its homeless communities

A man holding his belongings looks out from a subway station 26 January 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

On the corner of 23rd Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan beneath the landmark Flatiron building, two workers from the Bridge, an outreach non-profit, were hoping to help a number of homeless men seek shelter from the dangerous, freezing temperatures gripping the city.

It is a matter of life and death as New York endures one of its longest stretches of subzero cold since 1960. Seventeen people have died, with at least 13 deaths linked to hypothermia. The city estimates that 800 homeless people have been moved inside, with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor, saying recently “we have been taking every possible measure to get New Yorkers inside. This has been a full all-hands-on-deck approach.”