While the rest of the city enjoyed a drop in serious crime last year, the 400,000 tenants of public housing continued to live in a parallel universe where it remains a stubborn problem.
Major crimes in NYCHA developments rose about 2.4% from 5,088 in 2015 to 5,211 last year. That compares with a citywide drop of about 4%.
Seven of the city’s nine public housing commands showed increases in serious crime, fueling the overall spike in serious offenses at NYCHA properties.
Residents of NYCHA’s 328 developments have consistently endured higher crime rates than the rest of the city, and Mayor de Blasio has added cops, lighting and security cameras to turn things around.
In announcing the good news Wednesday, the NYPD noted that shootings in NYCHA developments had dropped from 225 to 188 through Dec. 25.
Murders fell slightly from 50 to 48. But rapes, assaults, burglaries and grand larcenies in public housing all rose from 2015, according to the last available data for the period Jan. 1 through Dec. 25, 2016.
The housing bureau in lower Manhattan, for example, reported an 11.4% spike in serious crime, including a 36% jump in rapes, a 22% rise in robberies and a 44% increase in grand larcenies.
Records show there was a 38.1% increase in major crimes at the Cypress Hills Houses in Brooklyn. The number of shootings rose from one in 2015 to five last year. Grand larcenies jumped from five to 13, and robberies increased from six to 13.
Tenant Latif Mohammod, 59, said the number of shootings there depends on whether police are on site. “I fear for my safety, I fear for my grandkids’ safety,” he said. “You can’t even take the kids to the park here to play anymore because you’re afraid they’ll start shooting. It ain’t fair to the kids.”
NYPD spokesman Peter Donald called the NYCHA numbers “the exception, not the norm,” noting, “Obviously, there are particular places where we’re going to have increases in crime.
“We’ve remained focused with an enormous amount of precision on areas where violence still persists.”
