City: Now we will test lead
RESPONDING TO THE Housing Authority’s lead paint inspection failures, City Hall will offer free blood-lead testing for thousands of children living in public housing starting Monday.
Mayor de Blasio set up a new hotline for parents to call for testing in response to revelations by the Daily News that untrained, uncertified NYCHA workers have for years performed complicated lead paint clean-ups in apartments with children.
This practice had been going on for years and continued into August, but NYCHA will offer the free blood tests to only a limited number of children: 3,000 kids ages 6 months to 8 years old in 2,300 apartments that were cleaned up in 2016.
That by no means covers all children living or regularly visiting apartments with lead paint, of which NYCHA estimates there are 55,000. That includes 8,900 apartments where children live as tenants.
De Blasio and NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye have been under fire since a city Department of Investigation report last month revealed the authority falsely certified it had performed all required inspections for toxic lead paint.
The News first reported NYCHA’s false certification problem in July.
If ingested or inhaled by young children, lead paint can cause developmental delays. Between 2010 and 2015, NYCHA says 202 children under age 18 have tested positive for elevated blood-lead levels. NYCHA attributes the lead paint in their apartments to only 19 of those children.
On Monday NYCHA staff will begin calling eligible tenants to let them know about the program and provide a hotline number (347-507-3684) to call and set up an appointment.
NYCHA is required by local law and federal regulation to inspect all its presumed-lead apartments every year, but stopped doing that in 2012.
Olatoye says she was first told the agency was in non-compliance in mid-2016, and she says she immediately ordered inspections of 4,200 apartments with children.
Not until August did NYCHA realize untrained workers were cleaning up apartments, a violation of federal regulations.