Thousands NYCHA Units Left Vacant Despite Housing Crisis
December 6, 2024
Rapidly rising rent prices make it more difficult for New Yorkers to find affordable housing.
A New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employee evicted a single mother from a two-bedroom apartment in Ingersoll Public Housing Development in Brooklyn. The woman admits that she had been squatting in the vacant unit with her 10-year-old daughter for four months.
Mocha says she is justified in her actions. The single mother says New York City has a housing shortage, and the housing authority should use its vacant apartments to house people experiencing homelessness.
“I truly feel like NYCHA should open up these apartments for people like me, people who are just literally in need of housing,” she told PIX11 News, New York.
Mocha says she and her daughter are now living in a homeless shelter as she petitions for NYCHA to allow her to retrieve their belongings from the apartment.
NYCHA reported that as of June 2024, they had more than 5,000 vacant units throughout the city.
Representatives from the NYCHA told PIX11 News that they must perform repairs and ensure the units are up to code before releasing them to the next tenants. They also added that units that are illegally occupied can threaten the safety of neighboring residences.
New York District 38 Council member Alexa Aviles says that the agency needs to concentrate on making these repairs.
“We need all 5,600 units to come online. So whatever we need to do as a city, it should be a priority if we are really trying to address affordability and the housing crisis –- we have units there,” she said in the interview with PIX11 News.
NYCHA once provided emergency housing vouchers to unhoused families; however, the agency stopped accepting applications in September 2022.
The NYCHA says it completed more than 3,700 move-ins this year compared with 2,642 last year. The agency reported that its housing application process can take two months to a year.
According to Statsiica, there were approximately 88,000 people experiencing homelessness in New York City last year—the highest in the nation.
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