Even With A Housing Shortage, NYC Still Takes 1 Year To Fix Up Vacant Apartments
According to the Mayor’s Office annual report released on Friday, the New York City public housing agency is facing significant delays in repairing and renting vacant apartments, despite a substantial increase in homelessness throughout the city.
In the last fiscal year, the average time it took to repair an unoccupied unit managed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) increased to 370 days. This marks a considerable rise from approximately 161 days in the preceding fiscal year and nearly a five-fold increase from the roughly 77 days it took to complete repairs in the 2019 fiscal year, as indicated by the latest Mayor’s Management Report.
The annual performance evaluation of the agency paints a gloomy picture for NYCHA, as it grapples with aging infrastructure and decades of neglect. By the end of the recent fiscal year on June 30, NYCHA reported having 8,074 vacant units. While around 900 units were matched with applicants ready to move in, roughly 4,200 were in the process of being repaired and were not yet available. Additionally, the agency is keeping almost 3,000 units off the market, some of which are being used as offices, according to the report.
NYCHA attributed the delay to more extensive requirements “due to the deteriorating conditions in NYCHA buildings.” These units typically necessitate new cabinets, doors, plumbing repairs, as well as lead and asbestos testing, explained spokesperson Michael Horgan.
Horgan stated, “NYCHA is a vital source of affordable housing, and our objective is to complete apartment turnovers as swiftly as possible, all while ensuring that New Yorkers are placed in safe homes that have been remediated of specific hazards.”
Due to these delays, fewer families and individuals are moving into available public housing units compared to previous years. In the last fiscal year, just over 1,000 households relocated to NYCHA apartments, in contrast to more than 3,300 in the 2020 fiscal year.
However, NYCHA did assist nearly 3,800 New Yorkers in transitioning from homeless shelters to other apartments by issuing Section 8 vouchers, a substantial increase from the 749 assisted in the 2020 fiscal year. Simultaneously, the number of individuals moving from shelters to apartments on public housing campuses dropped significantly, from approximately 1,900 in the 2020 fiscal year to 650 in the last year.
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