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.
“If we were filling every one of those units up, we would see the vast, overwhelming majority of people who are sleeping on the streets and subways be relocated into permanent housing with onsite services,” Restler said.
Department of Social Services spokesperson Neha Sharma welcomed the new reporting requirement and said the agency has enhanced its tracking and monitoring of the empty units, placing about 4,800 people in supportive housing last fiscal year, a 19% increase compared to 2023. That number includes people placed in apartments after a previous tenant moved out, as well as residents moving into brand-new buildings.
“While the agency has always promptly reported out these numbers when requested, we support this legislation to strengthen transparency and look forward to using this as an opportunity to better inform stakeholders about NYC’s supportive housing network,” Sharma said in a written statement.
In June, 5,092 of the apartments sat empty, city officials said at a Council hearing on the legislation. More than 900 had a tenant lined up for move-in at the time, meaning they would be filled soon, but about 2,200 required extensive repairs and could not safely house tenants, Social Services administrator Scott French told councilmembers.
The majority of the empty units were funded by the state, French said. A patchwork of city and state agencies directs money to an array of nonprofit organizations that run the apartment buildings and hire social workers, case managers, security guards and other staff to operate the sites.
The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which oversees social service agencies across New York, did not respond to a request for comment about the measure and the vacant apartments.
At the June hearing, French pushed back against Restler’s suggestion that the apartments be reserved for only street homeless New Yorkers.
“Street homeless individuals are not the only individuals who need and can utilize supportive housing,” he said.. “The universe of individuals who can benefit from supportive housing is broader than that.”
More than 85,000 people stayed in shelters overseen by the city’s Department of Homeless Services on Tuesday, the city’s latest daily census shows.
Tenants living in supportive housing units pay no more than 30% of their income toward rent, while government agencies and housing assistance vouchers, like the federal Section 8 program, cover the remainder. Tenants qualify for the housing based on several factors, such as having experienced homelessness and a diagnosed mental illness, having spent time in jail or prison, or having been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Most of the supportive housing complexes are owned by nonprofit organizations, while thousands of units are located in privately owned buildings and leased by providers.
French told councilmembers that many vacancies are due to the condition of the apartments. Some, like those with private bathrooms in newly constructed buildings, are more desirable than units in older, single-room occupancy buildings with shared accommodations, for example.
In testimony to the Council, Coalition for the Homeless Government Affairs Director Alison Wilkey agreed that “some supportive housing units simply do not meet the needs of those seeking supportive housing, which may explain why some units are vacant for long periods of time.” Wilkey described the problem of shared apartments, where people with serious mental illness may struggle to live with roommates.
But Wilkey said the city should disclose even more information than the current legislation requires to better detail the current state of the apartments and their funding sources to determine. The information could help identify which agencies and nonprofit providers are responsible for their renovation and upkeep.
Supportive housing residents and New Yorkers experiencing homelessness have highlighted another problem: providers frequently reject applicants who meet eligibility criteria and are referred by the city based on vague reasoning, like lacking “insight” into their mental illness or requiring a higher level of care. Tenants and their advocates call the tactic “creaming” and say it prevents people with the most needs from accessing housing designed to assist them.
The Supportive Housing Network of New York, which first drew attention to the problem of chronic vacancies in 2022, supports the new measure.
Tierra Labrada, the group’s director of policy and advocacy, said it will reveal the units that are most commonly vacant and help policymakers and providers figure out how to fix them or make them more appealing.
“By providing more precise data on the types and locations of these units, will equip us to develop data-driven solutions and create housing that is truly responsive to the needs of prospective supportive housing residents,” she said.