NYCHA Lead Scandal Spurs Reforms, Resignations

NEW YORK, NY — The New York City Housing Authority pledged to create an internal compliance office Friday afternoon after it failed for years to test its buildings for lead. Two senior officials resigned and a third was demoted Friday in what Chairwoman Shola Olatoye called a "systemic overhaul" of the embattled agency.

The changes follow a city Department of Investigation report released Tuesday that found NYCHA officials didn't perform required lead testing in its buildings over four years and then falsely told the federal government they had.

"Our residents deserve better and we will continue to implement changes at every level of the Authority," Olatoye said in a statement.

NYCHA is continuing lead tests it started last year after learning of the oversight. It will work with experts to safeguard its buildings from future problems, the authority said. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York are involved in NYCHA's internal investigation, NYCHA said.

The new compliance department, led by a chief compliance officer who reports directly to Olatoye, will train NYCHA employees and ensure the authority's external reports are accurate. The department will also field complaints from NYCHA residents and employees, the authority said.

NYCHA is working with an outside vendor to inspect the 55,000 apartments affected by lead through 2018, spoekswoman Jasmine Blake said in an email.

By the end of the year, the authority will have inspected the more than 4,200 of those where a child younger than 6 could have been exposed to lead paint, officials said. More than 2,300 of those 4,200 apartments have been repainted.

Brian Clarke, NYCHA's senior vice president for operations, and Jay Krantz, the director of technical services, resigned Friday, spokeswoman Jean Weinberg said in an email. Luis Ponce, another senior vice president for operations, was demoted to a building superintendent position and suspended without pay for 30 days.

All three had worked for NYCHA for at least two decades, Weinberg said. Clarke's last salary was $184,782, Krantz's was $148,765 and Ponce's was $88,499.

The resignations come a day after Public Advocate Letitia James called for leadership changes at the agency in the scandal's wake.

The DoI probe found that "certain senior NYCHA officials, including operations executives," knew in 2015 that NYCHA wasn't testing its apartments for lead and was lying to the federal government about it. Thos officials were trying to fix the problem at the time, the DoI report says. But Olatoye told investigators she didn't find out until 2016.

The scandal this week has led some top officials, including James, to question Olatoye and other NYCHA leaders. Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials have defended Olatoye, saying she's the right person to fix the problems the DoI probe unearthed.

The DoI report recommended that the state appoint an independent monitor for NYCHA. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reportedly considering doing so, with support from some city officials.

City Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) said a state monitor is still necessary. He has pledged to hold a hearing in the Committee on Public Housing, which he chairs, to learn more about what NYCHA is doing to right its ship.

"An internal compliance department is no substitute for an independent monitor," Torres, who grew up in a public housing project, said in a statement. "NYCHA's failure to recognize the need for third-party accountability will only deepen the damage to its credibility."

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

(Lead image: A person walks by an East Harlem public housing complex on May 19, 2015. Photo by Spencer Platt, Getty Images)