Squatter Terrorizes NYCHA Chelsea Building for Two Years, Residents Plead for Help

A squatter identified as Stuart Newman has occupied a unit at the Robert Fulton Houses in Chelsea since 2024, bringing in homeless companions who attack residents and shoot drugs.

Squatter and homeless group hold NYCHA building in Chelsea hostage

A man identified in court documents as Stuart Newman, described as aggressive and in his 40s, has occupied an apartment at the Robert Fulton Houses on West 17th Street in Chelsea for more than two years — without any legal right to the unit. NY Post Metro reports that Newman moved in after the previous occupant, 77-year-old Harvey Wasserman, died in June 2024, and has since refused to leave despite court proceedings and repeated visits from the NYPD.

Tenants say Newman brings a rotating group of homeless individuals into the building every night. The group has attacked residents and each other, used drugs, walked hallways naked and set up makeshift camps in stairwells, corridors and balconies. When NY Post Metro reporters visited the building, they found clothes, syringes and urine in an interior staircase — remnants, tenants said, of the previous night.

"The police have dragged them out of there, they come right back," said Miguel Acevedo, head of the tenant association. "I think it's easier to evict a tenant who owes back rent than this squatter."

Five arrests since 2025, violence escalating

The NYPD confirmed to NY Post Metro that police have made five arrests linked to Newman's unit since 2025. Documented incidents include a tenant being menaced with a frying pan, another struck in the head with a vase, and a harassment charge. As recently as last Thursday, a 42-year-old man was hit with a metal pipe that slashed his head, arm and leg. That investigation remains ongoing, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Newman himself has been photographed by tenants emerging from a stairwell dressed in a pastel tropical shirt and a makeshift turban fashioned from a towel with multicolored fabric strips. One anonymous tenant described a confrontation in which Newman pulled out a knife and said, "You're not going to kill me."

"I don't think it's fair for me to face them as a single female," she told NY Post Metro. "I pay $1,000 a month and they're living here free and scaring the s–t out of me."

Residents describe daily degradation

Gladys Gonzalez, who lives on the 21st floor — one floor above the occupied unit — described conditions that have pushed her to her limit.

"They piss on my floor, they s–t on my floor," she said. "I come out of my apartment with a hammer — it's me or them."

Gonzalez recounted one encounter involving a person who was "completely naked, only had a shirt on, no shoes, no underwear, and he was literally rubbing his penis and laughing at me."

She added that NYCHA staff clean the area daily, hauling debris down from the 25th floor, but that the situation resets every night. The door to Newman's unit is visibly scarred with dents and marks. "The homeless were throwing bricks at it one day because he wouldn't let them in to get high," Gonzalez explained.

Tenant Amelia Martinez, who has lived in the building for 10 years, said the legal system has made removal nearly impossible. "All of a sudden they have squatter rights. They got a lawyer, so they can't be evicted," she said. "You have to go through the court system. That's crazy. If I did that, they'd arrest me, walker and all."

NYCHA launched inspections, but this squatter blocks entry

The New York City Housing Authority filed a lawsuit against Newman in November 2024. Despite that action, he has continued to refuse entry to NYCHA officials, Acevedo told NY Post Metro.

A March report from the NYC Department of Investigation found that squatters had taken over at least 548 vacant NYCHA units between 2022 and 2025. Since that report, NYCHA said it has identified roughly 40 additional occupied vacant units and launched a monthly inspection program.

"NYCHA staff routinely work with the NYPD to address issues concerning unauthorized occupants and loitering on NYCHA property," Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Sklar said in a statement to NY Post Metro.

At a tenant meeting last week, representatives from the Manhattan District Attorney's office said they were working to identify the individuals involved, as not all of their names are known.

Tenants say they have run out of options

For many residents, hope is running thin. One tenant said she is now afraid to leave her apartment. Gonzalez was blunt about the institutional response.

"Nothing ever happens," she said. "And what do they say? Oh, it's public housing — we just gotta deal with it. Nobody should be subject to this. It's a constant battle with NYCHA, with the police, with the borough."

Acevedo said the situation exposes a fundamental imbalance in the city's housing enforcement. With authorities unable or unwilling to act swiftly, and legal proceedings dragging on, the tenants of Robert Fulton Houses are left to navigate the chaos on their own.

Source: NY Post Metro