So far several rules have been framed and were brought into effect to ban smoking in public areas, in cars and many others, but no positive results came forward. Now the Department of Housing and Urban Development has kept forward a anew proposal to make the apartments and indoor common areas of the country’s public housing system smoke-free.

Previously several cities have implemented these policies to ban smoking. In July, the commissioners of Philadelphia’s Housing Authority voted to put a ban on smoking. In Philadelphia almost 55% of tenants were in favor of smoke-free housing, said officials.

Housing authorities in Houston and Boston also adopted similar restrictions for prohibiting smoking. But so far New York, which is home to the largest and most complex public housing system, was still lagging behind to adopt any such restriction to ban smoking.

Officials said there are several reasons that have made them adopt these restrictions. Last year there were more than 26,000 structural fires in New York. The top five cases that were identified by the fire department showed that smoking was the reason behind it.

In 2014, almost one-third of the accidental fires investigated by the city were associated with smoking. In a residents survey conducted in 2012 by the New York City Housing Authority 24% of the respondents said that one household member currently smoked. Almost 34% of the respondents with children reported that asthma had been diagnosed in at least one child at home.

About 70% of them said they did not allow smoking at home, over half reported smelling secondhand smoke from a neighbor’s apartment or from the grounds.