One hundred and twenty-six sex offenders are illegally living in New York City public housing – or at least claiming to – according to a report conducted by City Councilmember Eric Gioia.
While federal and local regulations prohibit registered sex offenders from living in Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties, the number of offenders listed as living in public buildings increased 12 percent since 2008, the report said.
This year’s report was the third that Gioia, the Chairman of the City Council’s Oversight and Investigations Committee, has released in so many years, and he sees the results as very troubling.
“More needs to be done to make sure these dangerous offenders aren’t living on the public dime in NYCHA housing when so many other law-abiding New Yorkers are on the wait list and when public housing is home to so many of our most vulnerable,” Gioia said in a statement announcing the results of the study. He went on to call the situation “a threat to public safety, and an insult to taxpayers,” adding that the city could easily and permanently solve the problem.
The investigation found eight sex offenders listed as living in Queens public housing, the second lowest number of offenders after Staten Island. The study uncovered 42 sex offenders – the highest number across the city – who had reported NYCHA buildings in Brooklyn as their home address.
Moreover, the Gioia report showed that 30 of the housing developments that were home to sex offenders in 2007 were home to the same offenders in 2008. According to Gioia’s interpretation of the findings, this figure demonstrated that sex offenders were either not evicted or that they had illegally registered a false address.
Gioia is calling on the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the Department of Investigation and NYCHA to crack down on sex offenders living in public housing. He is urging city agencies to create a system that would flag an address as public housing when a sex offender registers in a new location. Additionally, the councilmember is asking the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services to promptly address the accuracy of its registry.
In a statement, NYCHA said, “Registered Level 3 and 2 sex offenders are prohibited from living in public housing both by HUD” – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – “regulations and NYCHA policy.” NYCHA added that tenancy proceedings are initiated to remove a sex offender as soon as the agency is notified by the NYPD.
