Jul 23, 2015 2 min read audit

Comptroller’s Audit Reveals Sheepshead Bay’s Public Housing Once Again Among NYCHA’s Most Neglected Brooklyn Properties

Sheepshead Bay / Nostrand Houses — The Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses. Photo by Robert Fernandez

Sheepshead Bay’s public housing complexes have once again landed near the top of the list in a study of NYCHA’s most neglected properties.

The Nostrand Houses (2263 Batchelder Street) and Sheepshead Bay Houses (2935 Avenue W) had the 9th and 11th highest number of backlogged repairs out of all public housing properties is Brooklyn, according to numbers provided by NYCHA for an audit Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office released last week.

There are 100 NYCHA properties in Brooklyn, the second most in any borough. In total, the Nostrand Houses, which have 1,148 units, had 427 outstanding work orders, while the 1,056-unit Sheepshead Bay Houses had 414 outstanding work orders, according to the data, which is from July 2014.

This isn’t the first time that Sheepshead Bay’s public housing has been near the top of a list of NYCHA’s most neglected properties. An August 2013 study by then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio put the Nostrand and Sheepshead Bay Houses in the top sixth percentile of the authority’s worst buildings.

However, since 2013, the housing agency has taken steps to reduce the number of backlogged repair requests. De Blasio’s study found the Nostrand Houses had 3,367 outstanding maintenance requests and the Sheepshead Bay Houses had 3,428.

Although changes at NYCHA reduced its backlog from a peak in 2013 of 420,000, the comptroller’s audit revealed the authority understated the number of open work orders by more than 50,000 in July of 2014. The audit discovered NYCHA was able to show a dramatic reduction in its outstanding work orders by “making administrative changes in the way it categorized and closed work orders — rather than actually performing repairs more quickly.”

“For the 400,000 New Yorkers who live in NYCHA housing, the authority’s handling of repairs is a case study in mismanagement,” Stringer said in a press release. “This track record is shameful, and while there is no question that we have to fix these apartments quickly, it is equally clear that we must also fix NYCHA itself.”

Among the comptroller’s many recommendations for reducing the backlog, he called for the creation of of a transparent management system, similar to the CompStat system used by police, to monitor NYCHA’s ability to make timely repairs.