NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to announce a new Office of Community Safety on Thursday, a step towards fulfilling his campaign pledge to install a new city department to handle responses to mental health crises rather than leave that largely to the NYPD.

The mayor is slated to announce Renita Francois, a former city official under Mayor de Blasio, as the deputy mayor for community safety, sources told the Daily News.

Mamdani campaigned on the creation of a Department of Community Safety to handle mental health emergencies and lead initiatives such as gun violence prevention. He said he’d allocate over $1 billion to that agency.

The new office represents a scaled-down version of that proposal, which sparked concerns about how mental health response teams would coordinate with the NYPD in potentially violent situations. The NYPD did not immediately respond for comment.

From an administrative perspective, the office, created by executive order, is easier for Mamdani to create than a new city agency.

The office will begin with roughly $260 million in funding moved from existing programs, a spokesperson said, adding that the mayor would add an unspecified amount more to the office in the executive budget.

OCS will oversee the existing crime victim services, gun violence prevention, hate crimes prevention, domestic and gender-based violence and community mental health offices, per a copy of the executive order.

The office will also coordinate the city’s existing 911 mental health response program, B-HEARD, though the program will still operate under Health + Hospitals and the fire department.

The Mamdani administration still intends to pursue creating the agency, City Hall said Thursday — but to create a new department, they need the Council, including Speaker Julie Menin, onboard.

“The Speaker believes that NYPD officers are asked to take on too much responsibility and supports lessening the reliance on officers to respond to mental health calls,” Henry Robins, a spokesperson for the speaker, said in a statement. “She will thoroughly review proposals aimed at safely achieving that goal.”

Francois will start in the role in the next few weeks, according to City Hall, and will hire under her a commissioner.

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