NYCHA Waited To Tell Residents About Missed Lead Tests

NEW YORK, NY — The New York City Housing Authority told some residents their homes needed to be checked for dangerous lead, but didn't mention that a city law mandates such inspections — or that none had been done for nearly four years.

NYCHA didn't explicitly tell residents that it flouted state and federal rules until July 2017, a year after its top officials knew about the problem.

NYCHA hand-delivered a letter in May 2016 to the 4,200 apartments that had a risk of lead problems and housed kids younger than 6. The letter's purpose was to tell tenants "about the need for new Local Law 1 lead inspections," Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said Monday, referring to the 2004 city law mandating checks for lead hazards in certain NYCHA apartments.

NYCHA sent the letter after Chairwoman Shola Olatoye learned in April 2016 that the authority had stopped performing the city-mandated lead inspections in 2012, as a city Department of Investigation report found last week.

But the letter makes it seem a new federal initiative called "National Healthy Homes Month" — not a massive NYCHA oversight — was the impetus for the testing.

The letter says NYCHA's tenants fill out a "legally-required form" indicating whether they have a child younger than 6 living in the home. But it never mentions Local Law 1 or its mandate for lead testing in those apartments.

"In June, NYCHA will be joining the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other public housing authorities across the country in recognizing the First Annual National Healthy Homes Month," the letter reads.

"The Authority is taking this opportunity to provide information and outreach to NYCHA families to help keep you as safe as possible from lead exposures."

The letter goes on to tell tenants to make sure an adult is home when a NYCHA staff member comes to briefly inspect their apartment and offers a list of five "simple ways to protect your child from lead poisoning."

The roughly 4,200 apartments that got the May letter are a fraction of the 55,000 NYCHA should have been testing for lead under federal rules, according to the Department of Investigation's report. The probe found NYCHA officials told the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development in four consecutive years that the tests had been performed even though officials knew they hadn't.

NYCHA sent another letter to every public-housing resident on July 26 of this year explicitly saying it had failed to follow city and federal lead-testing rules. It came about a year after Olatoye learned that NYCHA had also flouted federal regulations in failing to inspect apartments where lead posed a danger.

The July letter was sent the same day NYCHA filed documents with HUD acknowledging its failure to follow the lead regulations, according to the DoI report. It said NYCHA would start inspecting affected apartments this fall but didn't specify how long apartments had gone without inspections.

"You can be assured that the health and safety of public housing residents and employees is our top priority," says the July letter, which is signed by Olatoye. "NYCHA is taking meaningful steps to promptly get into compliance, which includes the way the Authority evaluates and addresses lead-based paint hazards."

NYCHA staff ordered inspections as soon as they became aware in April 2016 of the past failure to test for lead as the city law required, de Blasio said. Only four kids living in NYCHA apartments have shown evidence of lead poisoning since 2014, and none have shown any worse health effects, he said.

The mayor acknowledged Monday that at first, the city didn't tell tenants about the full history behind the inspections, which started in mid-2016 and were finished by early this year.

"I don't think going back and saying, 'Hey, you need to know that back in 2012 something was done wrong in the previous administration and it's only been caught now' — I don't think that necessarily helps anyone," de Blasio said at a news conference Monday.

"I think what helped people was going out and doing the inspections and doing the amelioration."

NYCHA has created a new executive compliance department to ensure the authority follows all local, state and federal rules going forward. Two senior officials resigned and a third was demoted last week in connection with the scandal.

Read the May 2016 letter below.

(Lead image: An East Harlem public housing complex is seen in 2015. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)