Alders voted to make it easier to share data on older homes with lead paint that pose a threat to children’s health.
The 5 – 0 vote took place at a meeting in City Hall of the Board of Alders Health and Human Services Committee Thursday night. The matter now goes to the full Board of Alders for debate and a final vote.
The vote would grant authorization to the Housing Authority of New Haven to collaborate with the New Haven Health Department in compiling crucial data involving homes where lead paint endangers children’s health. The aim is to construct a comprehensive database, facilitating swift identification of households with children under 6 years old testing positive for “actionable” levels of lead in their blood, which can lead to long-term health and developmental problems.
Following the expiration of a prior agreement between the Connecticut State Department of Public Health and the Housing Authority of New Haven, the absence of a data-sharing arrangement necessitated action, officials said at Thursday’s hearing. Under this newly established regulation, the housing authority commits to sharing addresses quarterly with the city’s Health Department. This data will undergo analysis to pinpoint households where children have been affected by lead poisoning. For privacy and security reasons, only house addresses will be shared.
In the event of a match, homeowners will receive outreach and assistance to rectify the lead paint issue. Historically, the housing authority has provided grants of up to $15,000 for this purpose. If landlords fail to address the problem, assistance payments from the housing authority will cease, and affected families will be offered relocation support to alternative accommodation.
City Health Director Maritza Bond spoke in favor of the proposal at Thursday night’s hearing, saying it would aid with the creation of a centralized dashboard, streamlining information storage for quick access. This system aims to eliminate time lags, enabling expedited communication with homeowners and residents to initiate remediation payments promptly.
Evelise Ribeiro, director of compliance and MTW (federal “Moving to Work”) initiatives at the housing authority, reiterated the overarching objective of ensuring every family has a secure and healthy living environment.
“Our goal is to make sure every family has a safe place to live in,” said Ribeiro.
Any detectable level of lead in children is concerning.
Any significant level of lead in women is also concerning.
That said, I'm not confident this data base will help make anyone in HVN safer.
We know that unless a lead remediation has taken place in a building constructed prior to ~1980, its paint likely contains lead. The fact that a building actually does contain lead paint does not necessarily result in lead exposure to anyone. Like asbestos, lead paint in a building can be managed to prevent likely exposure.
If a child is tested to have sustained a lead exposure, that exposure may have originated in another building, as likely as from the building in which the child lives at the time of testing.
Due to the historical use of leaded gasoline (tetra ethyl lead) in cars trucks and aircraft, we know that varying amounts of lead are contained in soil throughout CT.
With all these variables to be considered, how does the process of getting the lead exposed person properly treated and recurrence prevented improved by the use of this proposed data base?
How many individuals, currently living in HVN, have blood lead levels of concern; and how many of these individuals are children?
IMO, 15k $$ is a woefully low amount to resolve a building or soil lead contamination.