Edna Wells Handy Named NYCHA Watchdog After Lead Scandal

NEW YORK, NY — Edna Wells Handy, a top NYPD lawyer and former Citywide Administrative Services commissioner, will start next month as the New York City Housing Authority's internal watchdog after its lead-testing scandal, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

As NYCHA's first chief compliance officer, Handy will be responsible for vetting the housing authority's external reports follow all local, state and federal laws. NYCHA created the position last week after a the city Department of Investigation report showed the authority failed to test its apartments for lead and then falsely told federal officials it had.

Handy, currently the legal counsel to NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill, has worked for four city agencies. She previously served as commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

De Blasio announced Handy's appointment while defending his administration's handling of the scandal, which appeared to violate city and federal laws. City Hall acknowledged Monday that it had known about the blown-off tests for a year and a half before they became public last week.

"This was a mistake and I'm very frustrated with it," de Blasio said at a news conference Monday. "But I want to emphasize, thank god, we live in a city with a tremendous focus on public health."

The Department of Investigation probe ran concurrently with an investigation into NYCHA's lead-testing practices by the U.S. attorney's office. That investigation may conclude in a few months with the federal government appointing an independent monitor for NYCHA, de Blasio said.

Handy, who grew up in public housing, will report directly to NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye as the head of NYCHA's new compliance department. In addition to checking all of NYCHA's external reports, Handy will oversee training for NYCHA employees and field complaints from the authority's tenants and employees.

"This is about holding the agency accountable to laws at every level of government and, most importantly, to the 400,000 New Yorkers who call NYCHA home," Handy said in a statement.

NYCHA created the compliance office Friday as part of its efforts ensure it follows lead-testing rules going forward. Two senior NYCHA officials resigned and a third was demoted Friday as part of the scandal's fallout.

The DoI found that NYCHA stopped performing annual lead tests in 2012 but submitted false certifications for four years to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that it had done them. Olatoye filed such a certification in 2016 even though they knew the tests weren't performed, the report said. Other top officials knew about the failures more than a year earlier.

Olatoye told de Blasio's office about the testing failures when she learned about them in April 2016, city officials said Monday. Weeks earlier — after the federal prosecutors' probe became public but before he knew of the problem — de Blasio ensured reporters that NYCHA was testing for lead as it should have been.

The mayor said the city should have been more forthright about the problem. But he stressed that NYCHA immediately began testing for lead in the roughly 4,200 lead-painted apartments that house a child younger than 6.

"Actions speak louder than words," de Blasio said.

NYCHA also told residents of the 55,000 apartments affected by lead that it would be performing new tests, de Blasio said. But it's unclear whether NYCHA disclosed to tenants that the tests hadn't been done for four years.

The imbroglio has put Olatoye under fire and led some city elected officials to call for a state-appointed monitor to oversee NYCHA. But de Blasio continued to defend her Monday, saying she's helped save the beleaguered housing authority from mismanagement and disrepair.

"She depends on folks who work for her to give her good information," de Blasio said, stressing that Olatoye told federal officials about the testing failures as soon as she learned of them.

"She acted in good faith," the mayor added.

(Lead image: Edna Wells Handy, NYCHA's first ever chief compliance officer, is pictured in 2010. Photo from nyc.gov)