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# Rich Kleiman says Mamdani, Hochul aren't doing enough on homelessness
- URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/rich-kleiman-says-mamdani-hochul-arent-doing-enough-on-homelessness/
- Published: 2026-11-02T04:00:53.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T04:00:53.000Z
- Description: KAWS and Julia Chiang were also honored at ARTWALK NY, where plates painted by 40 artists are up for auction through Monday.
- Author: Adam Schrader
- Tags: Government and Cultural Heritage, #public-access

Asked whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul are doing enough to address homelessness, Boardroom co-founder and chief executive Rich Kleiman hesitated before answering no.

"Only because it's still such a problem,” Kleiman told Urgent Matter. “As leaders, I can't say anyone's doing a great job until there's true impact and headway made.”

Kleiman was honored Thursday for his philanthropic work, alongside artists KAWS and Julia Chiang, who are married, at the Coalition for the Homeless’ annual ARTWALK benefit.

"I don't want to pretend that I know exactly what each one of them are doing, what their policies are,” he said. “For me, I worry less about that, and I worry about what I can do and how I can impact, but the problem isn't getting any better."

Asked what more he could do personally, Kleiman said he can “rally more people and galvanize more people.”

"This is a basic human need that anyone on any side of any table should agree with," he said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/BFA_56542_8302305.jpg)

Julia Chiang and KAWS are are pictured at pictured at ARTWALK NY benefit for the Coalition for the Homeless. Photo by Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com

David Giffen, the Coalition's executive director, told Urgent Matter that there are “many solutions at work” but that “we're not getting funded because it's not a priority for the mayor or governor.”

Throughout the night, the fact that New York City has more homeless people now than at any point since the Great Depression was projected onto the venue’s walls. But Giffen also noted a more optimistic fact: there are more formerly homeless people in New York City today than there are currently homeless people.

"We have increasing homelessness now because the Trump administration is decimating supports for programs that help poor people around the country," he said. "It's ultimately the mayor and governor's decision what they're going to do about it."

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Giffen said one purpose of a benefit like ARTWALK is "to create public pressure to actually do something." "Homeless people are disenfranchised, right? Elected officials don't think their vote matters, but they do vote," he said.

An average of 96,852 people a night stayed in city shelters in August, including 30,835 children, the Coalition said on its website. Its [State of the Homeless 2026](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/State%5Fofthe%5FHomeless%5F2026.pdf?ref=urgentmatter.press) report, released in June, said 194,531 people used the city's Department of Homeless Services shelters in 2025, "the most in the history of the shelter system."

The city's [Mayor's Management Report](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/operations/downloads/pdf/mmr2026/dhs.pdf?ref=urgentmatter.press) for fiscal 2026, from July 2025 through June 2026, shows an average of 85,066 people a night in Department of Homeless Services shelters, down 2% from the year before. The number of single adults in those shelters rose 14%. A March street survey estimated 4,991 people living unsheltered, an 11% increase.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/BFA_56542_8302541-1.jpg)

 Lee Quiñones is pictured presenting KAWS and Julia Chiang with their award Thursday. Photo by Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com

The Coalition's report said Mamdani "backtracked on some of these key campaign promises" in his first five months in office, "continuing encampment sweeps and continuing the litigation against expansion of CityFHEPS," the city's largest rental assistance program.

The report also said "neither Mayor Mamdani nor Governor Hochul have presented any plan" to protect about 5,500 city households holding federal Emergency Housing Vouchers, which the federal government decided not to fund past 2026.

Maynard Monrow, a text-based artist who made a plate for the auction, said Mamdani is "looking after the less fortunate."

"I think they're doing things," Monrow said. “Didn't he balance the budget? That's pretty major."

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Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced an agreement June 30 on a balanced $125.8 billion budget for fiscal 2027, which the [mayor's office said](https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/06/mayor-mamdani--speaker-menin-reach-handshake-agreement-on-balanc.html?ref=urgentmatter.press) is "increasing funding for rental assistance and support services."

"About 10 years ago, I felt I needed to do more," Kleiman said. His family started spending each Thanksgiving Eve serving meals at a shelter on the Upper West Side, and that is how he came to know the Coalition, he said.

He said employees of his company now join his family there. "My kids have been able to grow up with way more than I had, and it's tough to teach perspective sometimes," Kleiman said, calling the night "a deep breath" and a "reframing of how I look at life."

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/IMG_6879.jpeg)

Plates painted by Maynard Monrow, left, and Will Cotton, right, are pictured. Photo by Adam Schrader/Urgent Matter

Kleiman grew up at 83rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue and spent much of his teens out in the neighborhood with friends, he said. Knowing the homeless people on those blocks "was actually this, like, endearing part of my childhood, but also always confused me," he said.

In his acceptance speech, Kleiman said a man who was at 81st Street and Amsterdam Avenue "every single day of my childhood" would ask him, "What's the greatest city in the world?" and answer, "Generosity." He would follow with, "What's the greatest nation in the world?" and answer, "It's donation."

When Kleiman was 12, his parents took him to California to meet an uncle he knew was struggling with mental illness, and he learned the uncle was homeless in Berkeley, he said. After coffee and a drive, the family dropped the uncle off at a street corner. "I never met him ever again," Kleiman said.

"So it was the helplessness I felt, because my father would give him money, but he couldn't get well," Kleiman said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/IMG_6885.jpeg)

A plate painted by Sarah Slappey is pictured. Photo by Adam Schrader/Urgent Matter

Music producer Mark Ronson presented Kleiman with the award. Ronson said that in 2007, when he and Kleiman had "a fledgling music label," they were called to meet Jay-Z at his Baseline studio, and Kleiman coached him on the way over.

When Jay-Z asked what he had been up to, Ronson said he answered, "I've been in England." "Just like that, I fumbled the biggest meeting of our lives," Ronson said. "But Rich was never once mad at me for it."

Ronson said Kleiman's family hosts formerly homeless New Yorkers served by the Coalition at a holiday party each year, with "food and games and gifts." "Reading all the stuff you've done with this, I need to do more," Ronson told Kleiman from the stage.

Kleiman called Ronson "probably the first person that ever saw me and believed in me." "I had no pedigree, no background, no resume, no college degree," Kleiman said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/IMG_6881.jpeg)

Two plates are pictured on display at the Coalition for the Homeless annual benefit. Photo by Adam Schrader/Urgent Matter

"I met him during COVID at the Nets games," Kleiman told Urgent Matter of KAWS. Kleiman, who has worked with Kevin Durant for 15 years, said he visited the artist's studio after Durant joined the Brooklyn Nets, and KAWS "did some collaboration with the Nets."

Kleiman said people from sports and art can reach people in need in a way that "means more sometimes." "There are street artists who have literally been street people, and I think that's the idea about art, that it doesn't matter the money you have," he said.

Lee Quiñones, who painted New York City subway cars in the 1970s, presented the awards to KAWS and Chiang. "You along with many artists now and in the future are helping to restore sanctuary for people that don't have a roof over their head, nor a plate of nourishment in front of them," Quiñones told them.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/IMG_6900.jpeg)

An interior shot of the event Thursday. Photo by Adam Schrader/Urgent Matter

KAWS spoke first, telling the room his wife "was going to talk and now she just told me I'm talking." He said he agreed right away when the Coalition asked him to make plates.

"I mean, there's really nothing to think about. It's what is right. It's what I love about New York," KAWS said.

Chiang, who told the audience she has "a deep fear for public speaking," also spoke. KAWS said the couple came "to have a night with friends and hopefully do something that will help others have a night with friends."

The benefit was held at The Grill in Manhattan’s Seagram Building. Forty artists, including Jenny Holzer, Mickalene Thomas, Derrick Adams and Tomokazu Matsuyama, painted plates for the Coalition’s Artist Plate Project. Online bidding [runs until 4 p.m. Monday](https://artwalkny.indy.auction/silent?ref=urgentmatter.press).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/IMG_6877.jpeg)

A plate painted by artist Derrick Adams for the Coalition for the Homeless. Photo by Adam Schrader/Urgent Matter

Giffen said the Artist Plate Project began in 2020, when the pandemic ruled out an in-person ARTWALK. Michelle Hellman, a member of the Coalition's art advisory board, proposed asking artists for plate designs, which were produced in editions and sold in online auctions, he said.

"We raised twice as much money in our art project as we ever did at ARTWALK," Barry Berke, the Coalition's board chair, said from the stage.

Last year, the Coalition asked artists to paint original works directly onto plates for the first time, Giffen said. More than 150 artists have taken part since 2020, and the project has brought in more than $8 million, the Coalition said in a press release.

Giffen said the benefit aims to raise $1 million each year, exceeding that in some years and falling short in others. Last year's ARTWALK raised nearly $1.2 million, including $390,000 from plates, the Coalition [said on its website](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/artwalk-ny-2025-recap/?ref=urgentmatter.press). The press release did not give a total for Thursday's event.

"If you bought one plate for $3,000, that would buy 1,000 meals for homeless people on the streets," Giffen said. The Coalition makes each meal for about $3 and hands out 1,000 a night. The meals go out at 22 stops around the city through the Coalition's Grand Central Food Program.

Giffen said the Coalition's 12 programs serve between 3,000 and 4,000 homeless New Yorkers a day and depend on private donations. In the past year, the Coalition said, it kept nearly 900 families from being evicted, and more than 350 homeless children attended its after-school and summer camp programs.

Holzer has contributed to every ARTWALK since the first and gave four plates this year, Giffen said. Ed Ruscha, who has also given to every ARTWALK, contributed the work for the live auction, he said.

Giffen said artists often make little money when they start out. "It's not surprising to hear stories of people living in their car or sleeping on somebody's floor," he said. "That might be one reason why we have so much resonance within the arts community, because they understand what it's like to struggle."

Monrow lettered the word "Woke" across his plate in fiery red-orange. He said he associates the word with people who show "empathy and compassion."

"I'm owning it," Monrow said. He said he received two plates, used one as a prototype and spent about a week on the final version.

Monrow also has three new text works in "Common Sense" at the Brooklyn Museum, on view through November 8\. One reads, "For your information, this land was made for you and me." Another reads, "In times of ugly, the best protest is beauty."

Monrow said he keeps singles in his wallet to give to homeless people he meets. "It helps somebody get through the day that day," he said.

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