Report: Lead found in 1,000s of NYCHA units

City public housing inspectors found lead in 11,275 apartments between April and December 2019 and still have not tested more than 100,000 apartments, a report released Wednesday by the federal monitor overseeing NYCHA revealed.

Since April 2019, when the New York City Housing Authority began using X-ray fluorescent inspections, 27,000 out of 134,000 units were checked.

Of those 27,000, the federal monitor cited 20,500 confirmed results, 55% of which revealed the presence of lead. More up-to-date NYCHA stats show that 13,435 apartments have tested positive for lead as a result of the X-ray inspections.

NYCHA has vowed to complete xXray fluorescent testing by the end of 2020, but the monitorship, which is led by Bart Schwartz, remains skeptical of that timeline.

“As we observed in our first report, the pace of XRF testing remains far too slow to meet NYCHA’s stated goal of completion by the end of 2020, despite efforts by the lead hazard control unit to add contractual capacity,” the monitor’s third quarterly report notes.

NYCHA spokeswoman Barbara Brancaccio said the authority will continue to evaluate that time line in the coming months.

With more than 106,000 apartments still untested, the monitor estimates that approximately 74,000 units will be confirmed as having lead paint. Brancaccio described this as an unlikely “worst-case scenario” because current testing has been taking place in developments “where we know there is a higher presence of leadbased paint.”

The authority’s inspection program is projected to cost $88 million when all is said and done.

The far-reaching lead inspection regimen stems from NYCHA’s years long failure to inspect for lead and the subsequent lies high-ranking authority officials told to hide that fact.

That, as well as concerns over mold and broken elevators, led NYCHA to agree with federal prosecutors to let a monitor oversee the agency.

In his most recent report, Schwartz suggested that all the subsequent inspections and repairs have the potential of “overwhelming residents with requests to access their apartments.”

“NYCHA must consolidate these appointments whenever possible,” Schwartz wrote in a letter prefacing the report. “Frankly, NYCHA needs to develop a ‘service mentality’ towards its residents rather than just a ‘check the box’ attitude.”

A NYCHA spokeswoman did not immediately respond.