Misguided ‘compassion’ of letting people sleep on the streets led to New Yorker’s death — despite him having a home

As this winter’s frigid snap took up an extended residence over New York City, it presented the first urgent crisis for Zohran Mamdani’s fledgling administration.

Tragically, 18 people perished in the deep freeze — at least 15 directly from hypothermia — which has triggered City Council hearings yet no mea culpa from our mayor.

Despite the dangerous temperatures, Mamdani said people would not be required to take shelter; he also ordered the NYPD to stop taking down homeless encampments. Only as a “last resort” would someone be forced inside.

Among those who died was Frederick Jones, who was found in front of a D’Agostino supermarket on 35th Street and Third Avenue on the morning of January 25.

“He was loved,” his sister Valerie Atkins of Rosedale, Queens, told The Post. She fondly recalled how the brother she called Freddy had a “gentle spirit.”

“It’s almost impossible to put into words how many people shared the same story: Whenever they saw Freddy, he would often ask them if they needed anything,” their sibling Teresa Belcher-Ledbetter echoed.

Jones was loved. And he actually had a home, thanks in part to the taxpayers of New York.

The 67-year-old lived in subsidized housing in Midtown, about a mile from where he perished.

“I just don’t know why he was outside,” his court appointed guardian Shonell McKinley told The Post. “He had a roof over his head. He had an apartment.”

Jones’ choice to spend time on the streets — even in the bitter cold, even when he had a place of his own — underscores just how hard it is to manage the problem of homelessness.

By the most basic metric, Jones could have been viewed as a success story. After living for many years on the streets, where he struggled with alcoholism and mental illness, he was able to land permanent housing in 2017 at the Times Square, a supportive residential building run by the nonprofit Breaking Ground.

McKinley said Jones’s SRO apartment — one of more than 5,000 units Breaking Ground manages — was small but sufficient. He had a private bathroom and shared a kitchen with other tenants.

The West 43rd Street residence has on-site social services, including psychiatric and medical, he was reportedly utilizing.

But that social safety net wasn’t enough to keep him actually safe and inside, leaving many questions about the Mamdani administration’s response to the Arctic temperatures as Winter Storm Fern battered the city.

The city’s 311 and 911 systems received a total of three calls about Jones in the hours before he died, Gothamist reported. According to an NYPD spokesperson, he waved off emergency responders the first time they came by. The second time, they were unable to locate him on the street.

The last came the next morning from D’Agostino workers who found Jones splayed out in the snow with a liquor bottle nearby.

It was too late.

While the circumstances surrounding Jones’ death are difficult to understand, his beginnings were much more clear — and stable.

The Queens native grew up in a close family of 13 children, his sister Atkins told The Post.

“Sadly, for people with emotional or addiction problems, the family can only do so much. All I can say is the pain of living on the streets must have been very hard.” Atkins said.

On Monday, the family held a memorial that was well attended by many relatives and close childhood friends.

In a pamphlet for the service, Jones was remembered for his love of his late mother Mamie, who “taught him how to drive a Mustang.”

He was described as an “avid reader” and a karate enthusiast who practiced what he learned from watching Bruce Lee on television. He also loved to play the drums and eat seafood at Sunny’s on City Island.

He left behind four children and many grandchildren.

In a family statement to The Post, Belcher-Ledbetter made clear “that he mattered to his children, grandchildren, sisters and family who loved him very much, even when we didn’t always agree with the choices he made.”

Atkins said her brother “preferred to live on the streets. He didn’t care for shelters because he said they were dangerous.”

She recalled how one of their brothers ran into Jones on a city street after not seeing him for a while, and tried to give him the coat off his back — but Jones refused.

Despite his instability, Atkins said, Jones regularly worked odd jobs for businesses on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica.

When he moved into permanent housing in Manhattan, Atkins said the family was relieved he was getting help. But Jones became more isolated — he stopped reaching out and essentially became estranged.

“He was always in my prayers,” Atkins said.

McKinley, Jones’ court appointed guardian since 2023, was shocked to learn that he had family nearby. During all of their interactions, she said, he vacillated between lucidity and paranoia — but he was always polite and always addressed her as ma’am.

“He held the door open for me and took his hat off in court,” she told me.

When he stopping paying his $246-a-month rent — much of which was covered by government programs — in March 2022, Gothamist reported, Breaking Ground sued Jones for nonpayment. This apparently was not done to evict him, but to trigger a legal process that would initiate greater help from the city’s Department of Social Services.

Whether it was madness, addiction or both that drove Jones to spurn help from both his family and others, his housing situation would suggest that his basic needs were being met.

However, his story highlights how progressive policies like housing first — which prioritizes stable housing without accompanying conditions of employment or sobriety — aren’t a perfect remedy for a difficult and ever growing homeless problem.

“It’s a theory that is very popular, particular in progressive jurisdictions like New York City: the way you address homelessness is through permanent subsidized housing,” Stephen Eide, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told me. “The fundamental point is that you have to get housing in place and then they can work on problems in people’s lives.”

Eide said advocates tout the success of that approach because people are transitioned from the streets into stable homes.

But he said there’s two sides of the housing-first story: the part that looks at the housing metrics “and the other side that looks at health and mortality. We know that housing is not healthcare — and bad things can happen if someone only gets housing and the underlying issues aren’t addressed.”

It’s a form of twisted compassion, as is the city’s reluctance to take people off the streets even when temperatures dip below 32 degrees — what is known as “code blue.”

“To those who feel more comfortable on the streets, I want to speak directly: I implore you to come inside,” Mamdani said last week as another oppressive cold snap was descending upon the city.

But what about people who cannot reason or take care of themselves?

Leaving the decision to come in from the cold in their hands isn’t humane — and has only led to more tragedy.

Jones’ siblings are not assigning blame to the mayor and certainly not to first responders. Though if there is a lesson in Jones death, it’s that sometimes people aren’t the best judge of their own wellbeing.

“I sincerely hope the city continues strengthening outreach and support so other families don’t have to experience this kind of loss,” said Belcher Ledbetter.

“If I can offer anything constructive: When the city is responding to someone who may be dealing with social-emotional or mental-health challenges, I hope a social worker or trained outreach professional can be included alongside the police, so there’s a better chance of connecting the person to help in the moment.”

And while the family still doesn’t have an explanation for why their brother was outside despite having his own place, they have something that eluded them for years as he battled his demons on the street.

“We have a sense of peace now,” said Atkins.