Tuesday, April 7, marks the 97th day of Zohran Mamdani’s term as mayor. amNewYork is following Mamdani around his first 100 days in office. We are closely tracking his progress on fulfilling campaign promises, appointing key leaders to government posts, and managing the city’s finances. Here’s a summary of what the mayor did yesterday and today.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled on Tuesday morning a long-delayed, 104-bed medical unit at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital for people in custody with serious health needs, casting the facility as an early step toward closing Rikers Island even as the city remains far from meeting its legal deadline to shut the troubled jail complex.

Standing in the foyer of NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, Mamdani framed the new outposted therapeutic housing unit as a break from the conditions on Rikers, where he said detainees with serious health and mental health needs have too often gone without timely care.

“Rikers, as we know, is broken,” Mamdani said. “Today, we are charting a different course, one that diverts from the path of neglect and begins the process of closing Rikers Island once and for all.”

Mamdani said the Bellevue facility has 104 beds and will serve “people in custody with acute medical conditions and serious mental illness.” He said patients would begin moving in on Wednesday and argued that the new setup would sharply cut the delays in getting care off the island.

“Patients will begin moving in tomorrow,” he said. “Rather than wait critical hours and travel off-site to get the treatment they need, specialty services will be just an elevator ride away.”

The mayor said roughly 100 incarcerated people would begin moving into the Bellevue unit on Wednesday, a shift he said would allow the city to close the North Infirmary Command on Rikers and transfer it to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in June. He later told reporters that about two-thirds of the people previously held in NIC had been housed there for overflow, not because they needed that level of care.

Mamdani says patients will begin moving into the city’s new outposted therapeutic housing unit on WednesdayPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell

THE CITY previously reported that the long-delayed unit’s projected cost had ballooned from $130 million to $241 million and that the project, first unveiled in 2019, was originally slated to open in 2022.

At a March Board of Correction meeting, DOC officials said construction and IT work at Bellevue were nearly complete, but declined to give an opening date, saying staffing remained the “primary hurdle.” Assistant Commissioner Alex Maldonado said the site would require additional uniformed staff because it would operate as a separate facility, not just another infirmary floor inside an existing jail. Pressed by board members about the delay, she said DOC wanted a staffing plan that “doesn’t borrow from Peter to pay Paul” and added, “My team wants nothing more than to open as soon as possible. We are working diligently.”

Asked about the staffing concerns that had reportedly held up the opening on Tuesday, Mamdani said the city had faced concerns about filling roughly 130 to 140 positions at the Bellevue site, but that officials had received more than 400 applications from correction officers. He pointed to that interest as further evidence that the new unit would improve conditions not only for detainees but also for officers working in the jail system.

Mamdani says Rikers closure deadline ‘practically impossible’ to meet

The opening comes as Rikers remains under intense scrutiny over jail conditions and deaths in custody. A total of 6,716 people are incarcerated there as of April 6, according to the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Two people in custody have died on Rikers since Mamdani took office. Under former Mayor Eric Adams, 48 people died in New York City jails or immediately upon release from Department of Correction custody, per the Vera Institute.

Mamdani said reducing the jail population would require both physical changes and policy changes, including faster case processing, diversion programs and other measures. He noted that “the vast majority of New Yorkers who are held on Rikers Island are being held pre-trial” and said some have been stuck there “not just for months, but sometimes for years.”

The announcement also came as Rikers remains under federal court oversight. In January, Chief U.S. District Judge Laura Swain appointed Nicholas Deml, the former commissioner of the Vermont Department of Correction, as remediation manager. Deml appeared at Tuesday’s event but declined to comment on the receivership, saying, “under the court order, we’re not permitted to communicate with the press,” before calling the Bellevue unit “really an impressive facility upstairs.”

Mamdani also acknowledged how far the city remains from the original timetable for shutting Rikers. He said the previous administration’s inaction has made the 2027 deadline “practically impossible” to meet. “It is going to take us quite a bit of time to ensure that we can put our city back on the path that the city council voted for in 2019,” he said, adding that the effort would require “a whole of government approach.”

Councilmembers Yusef Salaam and Selvena Brooks-Powers tour the city’s new outposted therapeutic housing unit at Bellevue Hospital.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams called the opening “a long overdue step toward aligning our justice system with basic human dignity.” He said people on Rikers with serious health conditions have had to endure “hours-long transfers just to access routine care” and said moving care directly into a hospital setting would reduce harm and improve outcomes.

“By bringing care directly to New York City Health and Hospitals like Bellevue, we are reducing harm, improving health outcomes, and treating people as patients first, not just as people in custody,” Williams said.

Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards likewise presented the facility as part of a larger effort to move beyond Rikers.

“Today, we cut this ribbon and open these doors,” Richards said. “We are not just unveiling a new facility, we are offering a glimpse into the future, a future beyond Rikers Island, a future shaped by dignity, care and support.”

Dr. Patsy Yang, the senior vice president for Correctional Health Services, said the project grew out of a problem that became clear after Correctional Health Services moved under Health + Hospitals in 2016.

“Many of our most medically involved patients were actually declining what, in some cases, was potentially life-saving treatment solely because that round-trip journey between Rikers and Bellevue was just so arduous that it could not be endured,” Yang said. “We knew we had to find a way to increase access to the high-quality care that health and hospitals, such as CHS with Bellevue, provide and offer to our patients.”

She said the outposted units were intended to bring people closer to care in a more respectful setting and suggested their novelty was part of why they took so long to open. “These outposted units. They are a first. They are unique, which is maybe why they partially took so long to do,” Yang said.

Dr. Patsy Yang speaks at Bellevue Hospital about the need to bring incarcerated patients closer to specialty care during a press conference announcing the city’s first outposted therapeutic housing unit. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Advocates with the Campaign to Close Rikers welcomed the opening as a step forward while pressing the administration to go further. In a statement, the group said, “This long-overdue step marks real progress after years of inaction,” and called for continued efforts to reduce incarceration, close and transition facilities on Rikers Island, and “fully uphold the human rights of people in DOC custody.”

Appointment: Mamdani taps Biden alum to lead city’s child welfare agency

At the same press conference Tuesday, Mayor Mamdani praised his pick to lead the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, calling Rebecca Jones Gaston “a very exciting appointment” as she prepares to take over an agency facing pressure on child care access, foster care and juvenile detention, according to preliminary budget testimony delivered last month by interim Commissioner Melissa Hester.

Asked what his child welfare philosophy would be now that he had chosen a new ACS commissioner, whether he planned to restructure the agency and where his administration would draw the line between removing children from their homes and keeping families together, Mamdani largely emphasized Jones Gaston’s background and experience rather than laying out a detailed policy overhaul.

“So I’ll begin with the appointment, which frankly, is a very exciting appointment in Rebecca Jones Gaston, who will be the new commissioner of ACS,” Mamdani said. “She is someone who brings with her local experience, state experience and national experience. She has dedicated her career, frankly, to building smarter and stronger systems that keep children safe and families together.”

In a statement released earlier Tuesday, City Hall said Jones Gaston most recently served as commissioner of the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2022 to 2025, under President Joe Biden. Before that, she led child welfare systems in Maryland and Oregon. The administration said she brings nearly three decades of experience in child welfare and family support systems.

The agency she is set to inherit is facing several major operational and budgetary pressures. In her March 16 preliminary budget testimony to the City Council, Hester said current funding would allow ACS to continue its existing child care policy for most low-income families already receiving vouchers, but “wouldn’t immediately allow” the agency to begin offering care to children on the voucher waitlist.

Hester’s testimony also said the city’s FY27 preliminary budget includes $1.1 million for 10 new staff to help safeguard the more than $1 billion in federal and state aid flowing through the child care assistance program.

Hester also told the Council that the number of children in foster care continued to fall. At the end of 2025, she said, there were 6,292 children in foster care, down from nearly 6,400 at the end of 2024 and more than 7,500 five years earlier. Her testimony said nearly half of all foster children are currently living with relatives or close family friends, and that the city plans to spend $263 million in FY27 and $313 million annually starting in FY28 to cover state-mandated foster care, adoption and KinGAP rates that the state did not fully fund.

On juvenile justice, Hester said ACS is currently caring for more than 340 young people in its two secure detention facilities, Crossroads and Horizon, and that over 73% of those youths are in detention on a murder or murder-related charge. The testimony said the FY27 preliminary plan includes $8.1 million in city funds and 40 additional staff to address the needs of young people in detention.

Jones Gaston, in a statement, said she sees the job as a chance to move “beyond managing crisis” and instead invest in prevention, trust, and family stability.

Jones Gaston appears to be Mamdani’s third choice for the job. NBC New York reported that City Hall had previously passed over two finalists, Michelle Burrell and Angela Burton, before naming Hester interim commissioner in February.

-With reporting from Isabella Gallo