The city’s embattled Housing Authority is ending 2019 the way it began — behind the ball on lead paint checks.
Officials have only inspected 28,000 of the 137,000 apartments they promised to check for the toxic substance, leaving them well off the mark to finish the job by end of 2020 as they promised, agency figures reveal.
That’s an average of 4,000 apartments per month, well short of NYCHA’s own goal of checking between 5,000 to 7,000 apartments every 30 days.
Additionally, officials acknowledged the costs of the lead checks has ballooned from the initial $88 million to “approximately” $100 million. Cost estimates for removing the lead in public housing units now sit at $3 billion — and could grow more.
“Based on NYCHA’s history, it’s not surprising that [it is] already behind due to a lack of follow-through, a lack of transparency, accountability and all of that,” said Danny Barber, head of the citywide NYCHA tenants association.
“This is very concerning for me as a life-long resident of public housing … NYCHA has to step up and must be more than a landlord,” Barber continued. “They need to be a public servant who cares about the people as well.”
Officials report that more than half of the 21,000 lead tests they have results for came back positive.
Judith Goldiner, a top Legal Aid Society lawyer for NYCHA cases, said she was “concerned” about the lack of progress “given how dire lead is to young children.”
NYCHA spokeswoman Barbara Brancaccio pinned the uptick in costs on efforts to accelerate the pace of testing.
“It is exceptionally complex work to test surfaces in every room of an apartment,” Brancaccio said in a statement. “We are working closely with our city and federal partners to stand up a proper inspection regime at NYCHA for the first time ever.”
She claimed: “It’s been ramping up: we’re now testing about 5,000 apartments every month and it will continue to increase.”
Mayor de Blasio’s first NYCHA chairwoman, Shola Olatoye, resigned as the fallout from the lead scandal grew in 2018. It took de Blasio more than a year to find a new permanent agency head.
Lead paint is one crisis in the avalanche of scandal that hit NYCHA in recent years, forcing City Hall to accept a partial federal takeover of the agency.
The latest setback comes a year after Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his NYCHA 2.0 plan which hopes to pay for $24 billion in repairs and upgrades over 10 years.
However, the city’s public housing complexes face a $38 billion maintenance backlog, leaving a $14 billion gap yet to be filled.