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Zohran Mamdani: “It costs the city more than $500,000 a year to keep someone…”

Featuring: Zohran Mamdani, Democratic | Mayor of New York City

JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event

Published September 8, 2025 | Video Starts at 46:46

How does that make any sense? And it's not a question of fiscal imperatives, because It costs the city more than $500,000 a year to keep someone on Rikers Island. And if you have such a large population of New Yorkers with SMI on Rikers island, you then have to ask, what's the best way of actually engaging and dealing with smi? (46:46–46:52)

CLAIM

Asserts that the annual cost to keep an individual on Rikers Island exceeds $500,000.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Zohran Mamdani

“Police Officers responding to 200,000 mental health calls a year.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 07:18-07:23
“75% of commercial units... are vacant within the subway system.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 23:20-23:25
“Rikers Island [is] the largest mental health facility in New York City, second largest in the country where 40% of all the population is…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 41:50-43:58
“More than 40 New Yorkers have been killed on Rikers Island, five in the last two weeks.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 42:01-42:06
“The cost of an entire year's worth of service [at a fountain house] is $4,000. That is three days on Rikers Island.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 47:34-47:41
“Eight of the 10 states that have the highest levels of crime in the country, which are Republican led.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 51:12-51:17
“For every dollar [California has] spent on a lawsuit, they've won more than 33,000 in federal funding.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 52:00-52:06
“No, we have not formed a transition committee as yet.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 00:30-00:33
“Yes. I can tell you that the experience I have every day is reading an article about people that I've apparently promised a job to.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 00:43-00:52
“This [Department of Community Safety] is a department that would have a budget of about $1 billion.”
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“My opinion is one that looks at the spike in crime across the country over the course of the pandemic and sees similar spikes regardless of…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 02:19-02:37
“I think we've even seen with raise the age that there are fewer arrests of younger New Yorkers than there were prior to the implementation…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 02:37-02:48
“About two thirds of the amount of money that was allotted still remains unspent in Albany.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 02:52-02:58
“We can see that murders and shootings are down since 2019, and they are down even further since 2024.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 06:09-06:18
“Major crimes are up 30% since 2019.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 06:20-06:23
“Our plan to deploy teams of dedicated mental health outreach workers to the hundred subway stations with the highest levels of mental health…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 06:50-07:02
“Response times have increased by 20% over the last few years, where now the average time is closer to 16 minutes.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 07:26-07:33
“The city, under Mayor Adams's leadership, has simply refused to issue the permits that are now required by law.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 09:03-09:28
“We have four or five thousand person waiting lists where a vendor will pay an intermediary $20,000 for the right to sell.”
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“In New York City, there were 35% of calls that Be Heard was eligible for. They did not respond to and the police responded to.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 11:30-11:38
“We increase funding for [Be Heard] by about 150%.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 12:01-12:04
“Cahoots in Oregon, a program that diverted 20% of calls that were coming into a police department.”
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“There would be no cuts to create this [Department of Community Safety].”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 17:28-17:31
“Raising the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey...raising New York City's personal income tax rate on the top 1% by…”
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“In Denver, they had a STAR program...crime went down by 34% over the period of a number of years.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 19:27-19:40
“Cahoots was able to resolve 24,000 calls, save for 311 without police assistance.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 19:32-19:43
“In Philadelphia, they have a Hub for Hope program...connected more than 300 previously homeless individuals to housing.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 20:29-20:43
“We had nearly the same number of vacant supportive housing units as we did homeless New Yorkers.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 21:00-21:08
“Three of [the applicants] died waiting to hear back on their application.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 21:20-21:25
“[Andrew Cuomo's] cutting of the Advantage plan... led to a skyrocketing of homelessness here in New York City.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 22:16-22:34
“Today, if you call 911, you cannot actually order... a response that is not the police to any crisis... for a mental health crisis.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 25:20-25:33
“35% of calls that even after all of that were still determined eligible and still not taken up.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 25:52-25:58
“I have actually found support for this vision of the dcs, of this idea of the removal of mental health crisis from the NYPD set of…”
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“I have supported that proposal [to abolish the NYPD gang database].”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 28:06-28:19
“I have spoken about, as it pertains to headcount, sustaining the number of officers that we have on the NYPD and trying to fight this crisis…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 29:13-29:26
“Does the NYPD having a more than 80 person communications team deliver public safety? No, that relationship is minimal.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 29:58-30:06
“It's been proven to be effective at reducing shootings by up to 40%, yet it's only in operation in, I think, 28 of the more than 70 police…”
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“We've talked about increasing funding by 275% as one part of the way in which we deliver public safety.”
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“The NYPD had a unit, the Demographics Unit, which was tasked with surveilling Muslim New Yorkers doing the most banal things.”
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“There have too often been instances where just identity in and of itself is the basis of suspicion and the basis of surveillance.”
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“Part of the reason I'm sitting before you as the Democratic nominee is because of an increase in Muslim voter turnout unlike anything we've…”
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“I've been critical of the Strategic Response Group, a group that was founded in the mid 2010s with the intent of being a counterterrorism…”
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“We've seen hate crimes continue across New York City.”
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“We have many schools where they will have a school safety agent, but they will not have a nurse. They will not have a social worker in that…”
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“The despair on Rikers island has been well known to many of us for quite some time, and yet it is despair that has only been heightened…”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 41:47-42:01
“The jail population of Rikers has increased since Eric Adams has come into office by more than 1,000 additional incarcerated New Yorkers.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 42:07-42:17
“We can reduce that jail population to less than 4,000.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 42:22-42:27
“The average stay on Rikers in the 90s was 50 days. Now it's more than 100.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 42:37-42:43
“There are more than 1,500 people on Rikers who have been held there for more than a year.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 42:43-42:48
“This administration has cut funding for much of those very services on Rikers Island.”
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“For New Yorkers who are released out of state jails, 40% immediately enter into New York City shelters.”
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“Fountain houses...have been proven to reduce hospitalization by up to 45%, increase employment rates by 50%, decrease loneliness by 56%, and…”
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“Mayor Adams put forward restrictions in an RFP that made it difficult for a smaller size clubhouse to even be possible.”
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“We do not need the National Guard here in New York City.”
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“No matter the context within which it is described, this has nothing to do with questions of crime and safety.”
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“A federal judge recently found in [California's] favor that the deployment was illegal.”
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“The governor's forceful pushback of [congestion pricing] is part of what allowed the time, the space, the oxygen for it to become an issue…”
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