Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers is calling on NYCHA to prioritize five developments in southeast Queens in the agency’s Vacant Unit Readiness program, noting that her council district features some of the highest NYCHA vacancy rates in the city.

Brooks-Powers wrote to NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt on July 28 asking NYCHA to prioritize Council District 31 after the city adopted a record $136.2 million in FY27 funding for vacant unit readiness.

There are currently 182 vacancies across the district’s five NYCHA developments – Beach 41st Street–Beach Channel Drive, Carleton Manor, Hammel, Ocean Bay Apartments (Oceanside) and Redfern – for a vacancy rate of 6.49%, which is far larger than the citywide vacancy average of 4.2%.

Brooks-Powers said council district is third-highest in the city for vacancy rates, according to data released in February 2026. The problem is particularly evident at the Beach 41st Street development, where 79 of the complex’s 712 units sit vacant, and Oceanside, where 33 of 418 units lie vacant.

Brooks-Powers said many of the vacant units in her district are ultimately taken over by squatters, which creates a safety risk for residents in the five developments.

“There have been instances where people have been selling drugs, there have been violent interactions with people who are lawfully living within the development,” Brooks-Powers told QNS. 

In her letter to Bova-Hiatt, Brooks-Powers is also seeking a report on the current number of vacant units across the five NYCHA developments and the number of units that have been identified as occupied by unauthorized occupants. She said NYCHA’s report will indicate whether the agency has made any progress addressing the issue over the past six months.

“We’d like to see how much has changed in over the course of that time, because it will tell us how serious NYCHA is about the developments out here and what they’ve been doing over time to bring those vacancies down,” Brooks-Powers said. “This is not a new problem for us.” 

The letter also seeks to establish whether an active Residents Watch operates and is supported at each development as well as establishing NYCHA’s planned vacant unit readiness spending at each development.

Brooks-Powers said vacant units could be used to help ease the ongoing housing crisis, adding that families are currently living in shelters because vacant units are not available to them.

“We need to renovate them and get families in,” Brooks-Powers said. “We’re in a housing crisis. There’s so many people living in shelters right now with families. They could be moving into public housing.

“We have all of these units that need to be made ready so that families can move in and have some degree of stability.”

A spokesperson for NYCHA said the agency’s goal is to move families into vacant units as “quickly as possible” but added that it must ensure it is moving families into safe homes that have undergone lead and abestos abatement. They further added that NYCHA residents stay an average of 25 years in a single unit, meaning vacant units are typically in need of “signficant repairs.”

These issues, combined with the age of NYCHA buildings and the agency’s growing $78.3 billion capital need, have increased the time it takes to address vacant units, NYCHA officials said.

NYCHA is currently carrying out inspections of vacant units to determine where to deploy the $132 million in city funding.

“As of April, we have launched monthly inspections of all vacant units and we continue our work with the NYPD Housing Bureau’s Reclamation Unit to address unauthorized occupants and criminal activity in vacant units,” a NYCHA spokesperson said. “We look forward to working with Council Member Brooks-Powers to address any concerns in her district.”