De Blasio Administration Announces Improvements to Permanent Exclusion Process to Protect NYCHA Residents

December 2, 2015

New changes include improved communication between NYCHA and the Police Department, centralized database, prioritization of individuals who pose a public safety risk

NEW YORK—The de Blasio administration today announced a series of changes to NYCHA's permanent exclusion process to protect NYCHA residents. These strategies are aimed at quickly and accurately identifying individuals who pose a serious risk to public safety and taking appropriate action, while recognizing that the vast majority of residents do not present these risks and should be allowed to stay in their homes.

“We will not allow individuals posing a risk to public safety to harass public housing residents and put lives in jeopardy,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Our expedited and improved communication between NYCHA and NYPD will allow us to quickly and accurately identify these individuals and exclude them, while ensuring we provide services and support for any families affected.”

“I have no doubt that working with NYCHA we will speed up the process of sharing information about violent people who should be considered for eviction proceedings. Every New Yorker deserves to live in safe housing, and that certainly includes NYCHA residents,” said Police Commissioner William Bratton.

“Though the number of individuals with criminal records who have been excluded from public housing has increased in the past year, the process of removing those who are not authorized public housing residents is complex. In an effort to streamline this process, NYCHA and the NYPD are streamlining our approach through greater coordination to improve and expedite the removal of those who pose a risk to the safety of others. This follows a larger push towards comprehensive safety enhancements such as increased CCTV and light towers throughout our developments. Along with the NYPD and our agency partners, we will continue to work to ensure the public safety of our residents,” said Shola Olatoye, Chair and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority.

“Every New Yorker should feel safe at home. We have made important progress in enhancing the safety of NYCHA neighborhoods and today's announcement advances the City's larger strategy of ensuring enforcement resources are being accurately and quickly deployed to mitigate the risk to public safety posed by a few individuals,” said Elizabeth Glazer, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

Using 21st century public safety tools, this strategy will allow the City to more accurately identify high risk cases and move quickly to protect public safety. The City’s new approach does not expand the criteria that could make an individual subject to eviction or exclusion from public housing. This approach advances the de Blasio administration's commitment to concentrate law enforcement resources on threats to public safety, while also protecting investments in neighborhoods and the people who live in them to ensure enduring peace.

Since the Mayor’s Action Plan (MAP) was implemented at fifteen NYCHA developments in 2014, murders have not only decreased across the Authority by 8 percent, but violent crime has reduced by 11 percent at the 15 MAP sites compared to the same period in 2014. MAP is a critical step in the right direction because it focuses on building an evidence-driven, comprehensive approach to public safety by strengthening neighborhoods and supporting the people who live in them. In NYCHA, MAP has made comprehensive security enhancements such as increased security cameras and light towers while increasing access to vital resources. Under MAP, the City has installed 52 CCTV surveillance systems comprised of over 1,800 security cameras, removed 12,268 feet of non-construction sidewalk shedding, and added 184 temporary exterior light towers.

The administration's plan to expedite and improve the permanent exclusion process includes:

To more accurately identify risks to public safety, the City will:

• Prioritize eviction and exclusion cases in which the individual in question poses a risk to public safety.
• Ensure NYCHA considers factors beyond the most recent arrest – such as background investigations of unauthorized tenants – to develop more complete risk profiles and determine which cases should be prioritized.

To ensure that individuals who pose a public safety risk are quickly removed from public housing, the City will:

• Expedite the exclusion process for the highest risk cases, with NYCHA beginning eviction or exclusion enforcement within one week of being informed by the NYPD of a high risk case tied to a NYCHA resident.
• Aim to exclude high risk suspects within 60 days of NYCHA receiving the case from the NYPD, while protecting due process.

To ensure swift coordination and sustained enforcement, the City will:

• Build a 21st century data sharing platform that will integrate data from both the NYPD and NYCHA to track active cases.
• Further enhance safety by reinstituting the policy of making the list of permanently excluded individuals publicly available so that both residents and NYPD are aware.