NYCHA Lead Scandal Prompts Probe From Public Advocate

NEW YORK, NY — Public Advocate Letitia James launched an investigation last week into the New York City Housing Authority's failure to test apartments for lead paint, the third such probe of the beleaguered agency. James sent letters Nov. 21 requesting a trove of documents from NYCHA and the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene related to what officials knew about a yearslong lapse in lead inspections and when they knew it.

A city Department of Investigation report this month found that NYCHA failed to inspect as many as 55,000 apartments for lead hazards as city and federal laws required from 2013 to 2016. Officials told the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development the tests had been done, even though they knew they hadn't.

James, a Democrat recently re-elected to a second term, wants NYCHA to hand over two dozen sets of documents by Dec. 5. They include communications with federal authorities, commmunications with current and former residents and a list of all NYCHA buildings with potential lead problems, which the authority has yet to produce publicly.

James also wants the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to produce an anonymous list of kids living in NYCHA buildings who have been tested for lead, and documents related to any investigations performed after a NYCHA resident showed elevated lead levels in their blood.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and other top city officials have stood behind NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye, who says she took steps to inspect apartments for lead as soon as she learned about the lapse last year.

But James' letter to Olatoye suggests the chairwoman's efforts toward reform haven't won her over. She called NYCHA's explanations for the failures "singularly unpersuasive." The New York Daily News first reported the letter on Tuesday.

"Children in NYCHA deserve to be safe from lead poisoning and all New Yorkers deserve to know why an agency charged with safely sheltering hundreds of thousands of people failed them so utterly, and was so slow to take steps to correct that failure," James wrote to Olatoye.

James called for a leadership change at NYCHA after the DoI report, which some have interpreted has a demand for Olatoye's resignation.

James can make recommendations to the mayor and City Council once her investigation is finished, but the city wouldn't be bound to follow them.

In addition to the Department of Investigation probe, federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office for New York's Southern District have been investigating NYCHA's lead-testing lapses since for two years, city officials have said.

The documents James requested are also involved in the other two inquiries, a spokeswoman for de Blasio said.

"The City has already provided this information to DOI and the U.S. Attorney, and will discuss this matter further with the Public Advocate," mayoral spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie said in a statement.

The scandal prompted calls for a state monitor and internal reforms at NYCHA, including the resignations of two top officials and the demotion of a third. The housing authority created an internal compliance office to ensure it follows all city, state and federal laws.

De Blasio has said the federal investigation may end with NYCHA getting an independent federal monitor to ensure it follows lead-testing rules.

NYCHA has said it has inspected all 4,200 apartments that were likely to have lead paint and housed kidds younger than 6. The housing authority plans to inspect them all again by the end of this year.

Patch has reached out to NYCHA for comment on James' letter. We'll update this story if we hear back.

(Lead image: Public Advocate Letitia James speaks during a rally at City Hall in February. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)