GOTHAMIST—Each year, New York City and state agencies fund tens of thousands of apartments with on-site services for some of the city’s most vulnerable people. But as of June, more than 5,000 of those supportive housing units sat empty.
Policymakers say new legislation could help change that. A measure approved by the City Council on Wednesday is intended to address the chronic vacancy problem by requiring the city’s social services agency to post information on the number of empty apartments and the reason why no one has moved into each one.
The city has more than 40,000 supportive housing units for people with serious mental illness or other special needs, many of whom move in from homeless shelters, and at times, the streets. The units and services, like mental health counseling and case management, are a key tool for helping address the city’s dual housing and homelessness crises.
Councilmember Lincoln Restler said he introduced the measure to correct what he called a “shocking and disgraceful” number of empty units during a housing crisis. He suggested they could be used to house the roughly 4,500 people now sleeping on sidewalks and in public spaces who were identified in an annual one-night count conducted earlier this year.
The city has only enough apartments to house about one of every five people eligible for supportive housing, according to the Supportive Housing Network of New York, a trade group.
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