Empty public housing units are creating a public safety risk as the New York City Housing Authority struggles to quickly fill vacancies, according to a new report from the New York City Department of Investigation.
Vacant NYCHA apartments rose to 6,740 in May 2025 from approximately 2,840 in January 2022. Some of the vacant apartments, without adequate security measures, create opportunities for illegal occupancy by unauthorized individuals, some of whom use the apartments as a base for illegal activities, investigators found.
In one incident in Brooklyn, property managers at Surfside Gardens in Coney Island entered an apartment to conduct turnover work on May 17, 2023, and found two illegal occupants in the apartment. After police officers apprehended two individuals, they found that both of them were allegedly affiliated with the “Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation” organization and recovered one pistol and one loose 0.380 cartridge, the report said.
"NYCHA apartments that sit vacant reduce the already limited availability of the city’s public housing stock, and without appropriate security measures, pose a public safety risk for public housing residents, employees and contractors," Acting DOI Commissioner Christopher Ryan said in a statement. "The security deficiencies found heighten the risk of illegal occupancy in the thousands of unoccupied units."
The current average duration of a vacancy is approximately one year.
DOI found that the number and duration of vacancies are due to: an increase in transfers of tenants from one NYCHA apartment to another; funding constraints that extend the time required to refurbish a vacant apartment; and an increase in the number of vacant apartments that require lead abatement, due to a local law change lowering the permissible level of lead in lead-based paint.
These issues increase both the number of vacancies and the length of time an apartment remains vacant—further limiting availability of the city’s precious public housing stock, for which there is a waitlist of 165,000 applicants, the DOI said.
There are significant funding issues NYCHA grapples with when a tenant leaves an apartment. The average cost to complete a turnover process is approximately $52,000 ($17,000 for lead abatement, $25,000 for asbestos abatement, and $10,000 for general renovations, though those costs vary widely). While NYCHA receives city funding to aid with apartment turnover, the agency faces funding constraints related to the required renovation work (both lead and asbestos work and otherwise), which can further delay completion of that work.
Together, these funding issues make it difficult, if not impossible, for NYCHA to materially reduce the length of time necessary to ready an apartment for rental. For that reason, it is particularly important that NYCHA take steps to improve the security of its vacant apartments during the lengthy turnover process, the report said.
NYCHA, DOI, and the NYPD have worked collaboratively to recover possession of vacant apartments from unauthorized occupants. In total, from January 2022 to May 2025, the NYPD reclaimed 548 apartments from unauthorized occupants, 60 of which were reclaimed through joint efforts by the NYPD and DOI. The joint reclamation efforts resulted in 81 arrests for an array of charges, including trespassing, criminal possession of a controlled substance, and criminal possession of a weapon, which pose a risk to the NYCHA community at large, the report said.
In addition to significantly improving the number of move-ins in recent years, NYCHA initiated a partnership with the NYPD in 2023 to root out criminal activity in vacant units on NYCHA property, resulting in the creation of the NYPD Housing Bureau’s Reclamation Unit, according to a spokesperson for NYCHA.
"Since its implementation, this partnership has resulted in the reclamation of over 600 vacant units inhabited by unauthorized occupants," the spokesperson said in a statement. "NYCHA works closely with DOI in many areas, and while they were not initially a part of these efforts and joined at a later stage, we have accepted DOI’s recommendations and will continue this work in support of our joint mission to provide safe housing for NYCHA residents.”
The DOI recommended NYCHA regularly inspect empty apartments, to use a different type of lock to secure the property, and encourage more resident involvement through the Resident Watch program.
Read the full report here.
