NEW YORK — New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met Tuesday morning with a real estate and finance leaders to talk through how to move forward on his ambitious housing agenda amid controversy over his opposition to the current administration’s policy of clearing homeless encampments from the streets.

Elected largely on a platform of making NYC more affordable, Mamdani wants to shore up the city’s affordable housing supply as well as implement a rent freeze for stabilized units.

The Hudson Square meeting came after Mamdani’s stance against homeless encampment sweeps sparked debate over the weekend, with Gov. Kathy Hochul pushing back in support of them — though the practice did not come up at the meeting, according to Kathy Wylde from the Partnership for the City of New York.

“What I spoke about with leaders within the real estate industry was the importance of us reducing the timeline of getting New Yorkers into affordable housing,” Mamdani said at a chilly outdoor press conference after the meeting.

“The quicker we can fill those units, the fewer New Yorkers we will have living outside.”

Mamdani also reiterated his stance against sweeps of homeless encampments Tuesday, saying that he instead wants to prioritize getting New Yorkers into affordable housing.

“I do not think that leaving New Yorkers to sleep in the cold is the answer,” Mamdani said of the practice of clearing homeless encampments at a press conference.

“I also don’t think that pushing those New Yorkers to sleep elsewhere in an equally cold setting is the answer either. I think the answer is connecting those New Yorkers with housing.”

Mamdani also spoke about making shelters safer and therefore more attractive to New Yorkers sleeping on the street.

Under Mayor Eric Adams, who started the homeless sweeps policy shortly after taking office, the city has cleared thousands of encampments. But a report in The City found the administration has not connected any homeless individuals to permanent housing in more than a year.

The meeting was brokered by Wylde, her predecessor Steven Fulop and Emma Pfohman from the Association for a Better New York. The attendees included Rob Speyer, CEO of developer Tishman Speyer and Hamilton James, former president and chief operating officer of Blackstone, according to Wylde.

Mamdani said he also planned to meet with homeless New Yorkers and advocates later Tuesday.

Wylde said over the phone that the sit-down was on the books long before the issue of homeless sweeps drew more and was intended to set up Mamdani to “hit the ground running on his affordable housing agenda.”

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