Mayor Zohran Mamdani conceded Wednesday that the Big Apple does need homeless encampment sweeps — but vowed that his administration will have “better outcomes” than his predecessor.

Hizzoner, facing questions about his course-reversal on a major policy promise, said he believed Mayor Eric Adams’ administration’s policy was a “failure” because it connected too few homeless people with services.

“I made a decision with my team to put a pause on that prior administration’s policy as we started to develop our own policy that would generate far better outcomes for the city,” Mamdani told reporters during an unrelated press conference in Harlem.

The mayor claimed his admin was waiting until the city got through the recent deep freeze to roll out the revamped policy, which was first reported by The Post Tuesday night.

He said it would differ from Adams’ policy by instructing city workers to return to homeless encampments for seven days in a row and attempt to get people off the streets before tearing down their makeshift living structures.

“So, whereas previously, a homeless New Yorker might have only two points of interaction with city government, the first day they’re served a notice, and the seventh day when that notice comes to an end, our administration will meet those homeless New Yorkers every single day,” Mamdani said.

The mayor also said the Department of Homeless Services would be the leading agency, instead of the NYPD, which he characterized as a departure from the previous administration — though DHS was point under past mayors, too.

When Adams began encampment sweeps in 2022, he called it a multi-agency effort involving the NYPD, DHS, the Department of Sanitation, and the Parks Department. 

It appears Mamdani’s homeless sweeps will utilize a similar structure, with the key difference being an emphasis on consistent outreach, though the mayor’s office didn’t return The Post’s requests for clarity.  

The added interactions could stretch the DHS workforce — just over 2,000 employees — even thinner, but Mamdani said he proposed boosting the agency’s funding. 

“That’s why, if you see, in our preliminary budget, we increased funding for specifically this kind of outreach, so that we would be able to sustain this over the course of those seven days, so that we can actually connect homeless neighborhoods with the services that they require,” he said.

The new policy also enraged homeless advocates, including the prominent organization, Coalition for the Homeless, which released a scathing joint statement with the Legal Aid Society after the reversal came to light. 

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“His pledge to discontinue homeless sweeps is another broken promise,” the organization said, stressing that Adams-era encampment sweeps were unsuccessful in securing permanent housing for homeless New Yorkers.

Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless, David Giffen, had just last week published an op-ed in City & State along with former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, praising the end of encampment sweeps under Mamdani.

Homeless outreach advocate and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel told The Post he doubted the mayor’s plan would yield improved results for street homelessness. 

“I’m not sure you can do it within a week,” he said of the seven day outreach plan.

“I’ve seen this scenario before. It’s a mistake in policy decision,” Siegel said. 

“He basically caved; that’s not what leadership is.”