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Evict More than 100 Sex Offenders Living in Public Housing, Report Says

By Sybile Penhirin | December 15, 2015 5:49pm
 The number of sex offenders who listed a public housing address as their home address rose 33 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a new report.
The number of sex offenders who listed a public housing address as their home address rose 33 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a new report.
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Sex Offenders in Public Housing: NYCHA at Risk Report

NEW YORK CITY — The number of registered sex offenders living illegally in public housing has increased by roughly 33 percent in five years, according to a new report released Tuesday. 

"Residents in NYCHA complexes have been given a false sense of security as they lay their heads down each night," the report released by State Sen. Jeffery D. Klein and Councilman Ritchie Torres read.

The law prohibits level 2 or 3 sex offenders — those who present a moderate to high risk of repeating their offense — from living in housing financed by federal financial assistance such as NYCHA. But a search of New York State's Sex Offender Registry showed that 110 sex offenders — 36 more than in 2010 — listed a public housing complex as their address, according to data

Out of the 110 sex offenders who said they lived in public housing in 2015, almost half — 44 in total —put down a Brooklyn address, the study shows. 

Thirty registered sex offenders in The Bronx listed that borough's NYCHA complexes as their homes — a 50 percent increase from the 15 listed in 2010, data showed.

Manhattan has 29 sex offenders living in public housing this year compared to the 14 found in 2010, according to the report.  

"Sex offenders are easily moving into and registering their addresses at many of our NYCHA housing complexes," the study read.

Klein and Torres called on NYCHA and the NYPD to evict those sex offenders from their apartments.

A spokeswoman for NYCHA said the city agency was aggressively pursuing eviction and permanent exclusion of sex offenders who have listed public housing as their residence. 

But the agency also blamed a poor cooperation between the city and the state for the increase.

"Dating back to 2010, NYCHA has requested addresses on sex offenders from the State Division of Criminal Justice Services as required by state law to data match with our current residents, but have not been given access to that information," NYCHA spokeswoman Aja Worthy-Davis said. 

"We welcome Councilmember Torres and State Senator Klein’s assistance in getting NYCHA the information necessary to verify the accuracy of the self-reported addresses and remove any sex offenders from our communities," she added. 

NYCHA also called into question the validity of the 2010 report, saying that 42 of the 74 registered sex offenders who had put down a NYCHA address did not actually live in the public housing projects. The ones who did were evicted, officials said.