New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) is sinking a quarter of a billion dollars into his new Office of Community Safety—which is intended to deploy social workers to respond to hate crimes, mental health crises, and other events typically handled by police—as the city faces a historic budget crisis. Mamdani established the office in a March 19 executive order and revealed in a signing ceremony on the same day that it would begin with a $260 million budget. While Mamdani moved those funds from