When Eric Adams announced his bid for mayor in November 2020, he promised to revitalize New York after the COVID-19 pandemic and to make the city a safer place. “To revitalize our city, New Yorkers of all backgrounds need to feel safe and secure, that they’ll have quality schools, affordable healthcare and housing, and a fair shot to get ahead,” said Mayor Adams in his inaugural campaign video from November 17th, 2020). The former state senator and Brooklyn Borough President made his time as a police officer a cornerstone of his campaign amid the Defund the Police movement, which began in early 2020.
He secured the popular vote in the Democratic primary against lawyer Maya Wiley, attorney Andrew Yang, and Kathyrn Garcia, the current Director of State Operations in New York. Adams then won the mayoral election in November 2021 against Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who founded the vigilante group the “Guardian Angels” in 1979.
Eric Adams has been a rising figure in both politics and advocacy for over 20 years. And as he often states, he has humble beginnings.
A Rise to Power
Eric Leroy Adams was born on September 1st, 1960, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, but he grew up in South Jamaica, Queens. His mother raised him and five other children all by herself, and times were tough for his family. Adams often tells stories of him and his siblings bringing bags of clothes to school because they were fearful of being evicted from their home because rent wasn’t paid.
In spite of being arrested and beaten by the police for trespassing at 15, Adams eventually became a police officer himself in order to reform the police department. He initially started as a transit officer in 1994, but became a police officer a year later when the police department absorbed the transit department.
A decade after he joined the force, Adams formed the organization 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care in 1995. Its mission was to call out racism both within and outside of the police force. The formation of this group, along with other acts in the police force, gave Adams a reputation for shaking things up in the police department. Adams often shone a light on the force’s racist policing tactics such as stop-and-frisk. Stop-and-frisk refers to the policing tactic of searching or detaining people for fear of them carrying a weapon, and people of color would often be disproportionately charged with doing so. He would also lambaste the discrimination faced by black police officers. White police officers in positions of power were often weary of his outspoken nature.
Throughout his time in the force, Adams rose up to the position of captain before retiring in 2006 so he that could run for the State Senate. He won and served the 20th senatorial district of Brooklyn for two terms until 2013. As a senator, he continued to advocate for Black and brown New Yorkers in regards to their relationship with law enforcement in the city. For example, he instituted instructional workshops that taught people of color what to do when stopped by the police. Eric Adams was elected Brooklyn Borough president in 2013, becoming the first Black person to be in the role. As borough president, he continued to focus on uplifting African Americans and Latinos in the borough via education and advocacy. In 2016, he created an app that allowed Brooklyn residents to apply for the community board. This created lots of interest in civil services, and applications to the board increased. After two terms as Brooklyn borough president, he turned his eyes to the highest position in the city.
Since he’s been sworn in as mayor, Mayor Adams’s time in office has been marred by controversy. Many New Yorkers, both citizens and politicians, say that he has failed to deliver on the promises he made during his campaign, such as lowering crime or lowering the cost of living. Other critics admonish his poor handling of the migrant crisis. Most recently, Adams has been indicted with multiple crimes including wire fraud, bribery, and solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, the foreign national in question being from Turkey. Now that his chance for re-election approaches later this year, a look at his handling of key issues is important to make the correct choice for mayor of New York City.
The Migrant Crisis
Since 2022, a significant amount of migrants have come to New York City, along with other cities across the United States. These migrants, most of whom originally got into the United States through the Southern border, have been bussed to New York in droves. Mayor Adams has received backlash for his approach for the budget, with the city spending billions of dollars on providing migrants with housing and food. However, to his credit, Adams has asked for funding from the federal government multiple times. The federal government has committed approximately 237 million dollars to the city to aid in the migrant crisis in the coming fiscal year of 2025. Meanwhile, the city itself has pledged an estimated 9.3 billion dollars for the migrant crisis in the coming year.
Many migrants in the city are experiencing a lack of accommodations. The city’s resources that are put in place to help these people are getting thinner by the day. To compensate, budget cuts, effective from November 2024, slashed into the police department’s funding, leading to less police presence on the streets. It also affected libraries, which are now mandated to close on Sundays. Schools have also struggled to accommodate so many new migrant students at once.
Migrants often end up in homeless shelters or other temporary housing, such as hotels or schools. The latter of these choices has been the source of outrage from some parents, who don’t feel like their kids are safe. In January of last year, hundreds of migrant families were bused from Floyd Bennett Field to James Madison High School in Brooklyn due to a coming storm. They spent the night at the high school, only to be taken back to the field in the early morning. Advocates for migrants saw this as a sign that more permanent housing was needed for them.
The Adams administration has worked to ensure a better life for the migrants and an adequate solution to the problem. The Office of Asylum Seekers (OASO) was created in early 2023 to regulate all plans relating to the migrant crisis. This organization started the Asylum Application Help Center, which launched in the summer of 2023, and allows migrants to apply for asylum so they can get work permits with more ease. In addition, OASO has completed at least 35,000 applications via the Asylum Application Help Center, and has reduced the cost of helping asylum seekers by as much as 20 percent.
Moreover, 25 of the temporary migrant shelters are scheduled to close before March 2025. This decision follows a decrease in the number of migrants coming to the city, the rate of which has steadily declined since July of 2024. Taking down the shelters is a part of an effort to lower the costs of caring for migrants, since the shelters are taking a large percentage of the budget for the migrant crisis. Despite this, the city has still dedicated itself to helping asylum seekers become self-sufficient. According to Mayor Adams, “Our intensive case management, paired with 30- and 60-day policies, have helped more than 170,000 migrants take their next steps on their journeys, because migrants don’t come here to live in our shelter system — they come here to pursue the American Dream. We’re going to continue looking for more sites to consolidate and close, and more opportunities to save taxpayer money, as we continue to successfully manage this response.”
Crime
When he ran for mayor, Eric Adams emphasized reducing crime in his policies. The former police captain promised to be tough on crime and to make New Yorkers feel safe. Some felt that this contrasted with the activism of his days in the force, where he advocated for Black and brown New Yorkers feeling safe among the police. But he made it clear that it was still one of his priorities. In his first debate against Curtis Sliwa, Mayor Adams said, “My son was a victim of stop-and-frisk in the city… I never call for aggressive police tactics, I call for appropriate police tactics.”
After over two years with Eric Adams as mayor, many New Yorkers still do not feel safe on the streets of his city. Via a poll from Vital City in January of 2024, 39 percent of New Yorkers feel like crime has gotten worse, and 37 percent feel that it has stayed the same. Many feel like police are never present to address the violent crimes that happen every day in the city. Specifically, gun violence is still plaguing parts of the city, with the likes of ghost guns. There is a lack of faith surrounding the NYPD, and the city’s government in general.
When the issue is looked at in a vacuum, crime rates are higher during Adam’s administration than DeBlasio’s. Based on the seven major felony offenses, there is an overall decrease of 4 percent during DeBlasio’s time as mayor from 2014 to 2021. Specifically, the amount is at its lowest between 2017 and 2020. As for the current administration, there has been an 18 percent increase in the seven major felony offenses, between 2021 to 2023.
Mayor Adams has implemented multiple programs to get crime in the city under control. After a few weeks into his time as mayor, he made a blueprint for ending gun violence in the city. It included tackling violence in the most dangerous parts of the city, along with helping people before they turn to crime. During his address to the city he assured that the blueprint was to be implemented shortly, rather than being a vague plan for the future. Mayor Adams stated that,“Today, we are releasing our ‘Blueprint to End Gun Violence.’ And I want to be clear: This is not just a plan for the future — it is a plan for right now. Gun violence is a public health crisis. There is no time to wait. We must act.”
Mayor Adams’s plan also included taking guns off the streets with an increased presence from both city and state police, getting people with mental illness who are dangers to themselves or others help, and implementing better judicial reform to allow judges to jail defendants that pose a threat to their community.
Despite the poor public perception of crime rates, shootings incidents have decreased by 30 percent since he took office in early 2022. This can be attributed to his administration’s focus on preventing gun violence by the way of community outreach. The Official Website of the City of New York states that nearly 6,000 guns have been taken off the streets in 2024.
However, the decrease cannot necessarily be attributed to the police taking weapons off the streets. This is due to the amount of inconclusive stop-and-frisks under Mayor Adams, despite it being declared unconstitutional in 2013 by a federal judge. Based on data obtained by the NYCLU, stop-and-frisk was on an overall decline during DeBlasio’s time in office, but when Adams took over it increased by nearly 50 percent between 2021 and 2023.
Whether the searches found a weapon or not, the data shows that stop-and-frisk policies disproportionately target people of color. For the past twenty years, only 1 out of 10 of those who were subjected to stop-and-frisk were white on average. To add on, between 2022 and 2023 over 60 percent of stop-and-frisks resulted in no arrests or summons; in other words, they were most likely inconclusive.
Crime has decreased somewhat in the city, but the police are going about it in the wrong manner. For a man who fought to protect Black and brown New Yorkers from prejudiced policing, Eric Adams seems to have forgotten about his earlier days as an advocate.
Cost of Living
New York City has never been an inexpensive place to live in, but the COVID-19 pandemic severely worsened cost-of living. Many people were out of a job and as such the city’s economy was heavily weakened. The economy was an important factor during the 2021 mayoral election, and Adams promised to deliver. Over 3 years later, while the city itself has bounced back, many people have not.
Housing costs have heightened over the last decade in New York City compared to other large cities around the country. According to a report from the New York State Comptroller, the cost of living in New York City increased much more over the past decade compared to Chicago; between the time frame of 2011/2012 to 2021/2022, the average housing expenditures for New Yorkers increased by nearly 70 percent, compared to Chicago’s 40 percent increase in the same time frame.
This growth in housing expenses reflects the fact that rent prices often go up faster than the income of the average New Yorker. In December of last year, New York City’s comptroller, Brad Lander, recorded in his monthly newsletter the average change in rent prices pre and post pandemic. From 2016-2020, there was a less than 5 percent change in rent prices, including studio apartments and houses. In contrast, from 2020-2024, there has been at least a 20 percent increase in rent prices for the same types of housing.
Rent stabilization is one way to keep housing affordable in the city. Last year, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board increased rent by 2.75 percent for renewed one-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments and lofts at the end of September. While this is still an increase, rent stabilization ensured that the increase isn’t too steep for homeowners to handle.
In addition, inflation has increased by nearly 20 percent in the last four years, whereas it only increased by 8.4 percent in the previous four-year window. The increase in hourly wages does not meet the growing expenses of New York City, even though they have increased by nearly 20 percent in the past four years.
The Adams administration has been working to provide jobs ever since its inception. As of the beginning of last year, over 40,000 jobs have been created under Mayor Adams, many of which are small businesses. The administration has also shifted to focus on creating new green jobs in the coming years that will reduce carbon emissions. These jobs work in fields like energy efficiency, and building maintenance. There has also been a push to give resources to young adults to facilitate their careers. These resources include programs like Future Ready NYC, which gives students a head start in finding their future career by showing 9-12th graders access to explore the different jobs at their exposure.
Mayor Adams has also addressed homelessness. As of January 2nd, 2025, over 80,000 New Yorkers live in shelters around the city, a disproportionate amount of which are people of color. And of course, there are countless people who don’t even live in shelters. Compared to the 2023 fiscal year, in fiscal year 2024 the Department of Social Security helped nearly 20,000 families move from shelters to more permanent housing. Even so, compared to fiscal year 2023, there are nearly 30,000 more people in shelters in fiscal year 2024.
In a bid to develop more housing throughout the city, the City of Yes for Housing proposal was approved by the City Council on December 5th of last year. The proposal entails building more housing across the city, a feat that was previously barred by oppressive zoning regulations. Opening the opportunity for more housing will decrease the cost of housing over time because it gives New Yorkers more choice. The plan is to have 80,000 homes created over the next 15 years.
Mayor Adams is enthusiastic that the addition of this proposal will massively benefit middle-class New Yorkers. He said in an official statement that, “Today is a historic day in New York City, but, more importantly, for working-class New Yorkers. We showed the nation that government can still be bold and brave by passing the most pro-housing piece of legislation in city history. Our administration proposed and fought hard for this proposal for more than year, and now New Yorkers are the ones who will benefit from lower rent.”
The End? Or a New Beginning?
Following his indictment in September 2024 and what many consider to be a poor record as mayor, there have been calls for Governor Kathy Hochul to remove Eric Adams, or for him to resign. If that were to happen he would be replaced by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams. Then a special election would take place a few months later. As of now, that has not happened.
Mayor Adams was set to go to trial for corruption charges in April 2025, but the trial has been delayed indefinitely. However, the charges against Adams still stand. The mayor has not spoken much about the charges, save for noting that he is innocent. Following his indictment, he said, “It is now my belief that the federal government intends to charge me with crimes. If so, these charges will be entirely false; based on lies.” Despite his statements, this case has given a major blow to public opinion on the mayor.
The decision to delay the mayor trial comes after the Department of Justice moved to drop Adam’s charges on February 11th, 2025, leading many believing that Adams is under Donald Trump’s thumb. Recently, he has gone to Mar-A-Lago in West Palm Beach, Florida, to meet with Trump; he also attended Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Democrats criticized Mayor Adams, saying that he was trying to appeal to Trump in order to get his charges dismissed. Whether these claims are true or not, those prosecuting Adams in New York City have a decision to make.
Many opponents of Adams criticize his tendency to exaggerate about what he’s saying as an example of his unfitness for mayor. For example, in the same video, he states that the federal government gave New York City no relief during the migrant crisis. But, as previously stated in this article, both Governor Hochul and the federal government allocated money towards dealing with the large influx of asylum seekers.
As the mayoral primaries approach, potential candidates have begun to make their case for mayor of the city. Democratic candidates include the aforementioned Jumaane Williams, who is likely to run in a special election if the opportunity arises. Recently, he has been critical of Adams for his policies on immigration, and has said, “Since Mayor Adams makes it clearer daily that he seems more interested in helping Donald Trump with a dangerous agenda of deportation, it’s clear that vulnerable New Yorkers can’t rely on this Mayor for support… Whatever our mayor or Donald Trump believe, immigrant New Yorkers do have rights, and I urge the President to join us in standing up for those rights today.”
Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, who organizes the city’s finances, is also running for mayor, and aims to address the cost of living. There’s also former city comptroller Scott Stringer, state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, former state assemblyman Michael Blake, state senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, a donor for the democratic party named Whitney Tilson, former federal prosecutor Jim Walden, and the former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Notably, while all of these candidates are democrats, only Walden is registered as independent. As of now, there are no Republican candidates that have officially started a campaign for mayor.
Rather than focusing on the coming election, Mayor Adams spoke about his administration’s accomplishments, and planned on improving life for families at his State of the City address on January 9th, 2025. He highlighted guns being taken off the streets, and drew attention to the steps being taken to create more jobs. However, many found this focus on families ironic due to his budget cuts on libraries and schools from November of last year.
Only time will tell whether the people of New York City want another term from Eric Adams. His record is polarizing, with many believing that the city is worse off because of his administration. It is safe to say that this coming election will be one of the most important in the history of the city, because it sets a precedent for mayors of the future, and how they are allowed to operate.
For a man who fought to protect Black and brown New Yorkers from prejudiced policing, Eric Adams seems to have forgotten about his earlier days as an advocate.