2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint

The health department dragged its feet, failed to follow up. Then the housing authority swept in and took action.

Now a West River mom can move to a new apartment where she needn’t worry about her toddler getting lead paint poisoning.

Meanwhile, her current landlord is asking why she never got notice of a lead problem in the first place so she could fix it.

That is all the latest case in the continuing saga of New Haven’s efforts to enforce its lead-paint housing rules.

It involves city government’s health department, which inspects homes for lead paint and is supposed to follow up on orders to abate it, and has been sharply criticized by two separate judges lately for failing to do its job; the housing authority, a separate government agency that oversees federally subsidized Section 8 rental subsidies for low-income families renting from private landlords; and a west side landlord named Nechama Langenauer.

Chyrise Holmes rents an apartment from Langenauer at 264 Orchard St. Earlier this summer her 2‑year-old daughter Riley Newland tested as having an elevated blood lead level of nine micrograms per deciliter (mg/dL).

That’s four units higher than the blood lead level that local and federal law identifies as presenting an undue risk for long-term cognitive and developmental impairments.

When the problem remained months later, the housing authority (which goes by two former names: Elm City Communities and Housing Authority of New Haven) took action. On Oct. 22, Evelise Ribeiro, the authority’s housing choice voucher director sent a letter to Langenauer and to her local property management company Freeman & Co. alerting them to the loss of their housing subsidy for 264 Orchard St.

That housing authority letter was sent one month and ten days after the city’s health department first sent its own lead abatement order for the West River property to the landlord on Sept. 12.

In the housing authority’s Oct. 22 letter, Ribeiro wrote that Langenauer and Freeman & Co. will lose their subsidy for the three-bedroom apartment starting on Nov. 1, and that Holmes and Riley will be allowed to take their Section 8 voucher and move to a new apartment.

“Maintaining a unit free of Lead Based Paint is a requirement of the Housing Quality Standards (HQS),” Ribeiro wrote in the Oct. 22 letter, referring to the federal health and safety standards that apartments have to meet in order for landlords to receive tenant-based housing subsidies. ​“The presence of toxic levels of lead paint in the unit is an HQS deficiency.”

But Naomi Freeman, the founder and CEO of the property management company that manages 264 Orchard St. on behalf of Langenauer, said that she never received the Sept. 12 lead abatement order from the health department. She said she didn’t learn about the lead issue at the apartment until two weeks ago, when tenant Holmes reached out to her about it.

She said that sometimes mail sent to the landlord’s P.O. box address doesn’t make its way to the property management company in a timely manner, especially if the mail is addressed to the holding company that technically owns the property, 246 – 266 Orchard Street LLC, rather than to Freeman & Co.

The health department’s Sept. 12 lead abatement order was sent to the Langenauer’s P.O. box and was addressed to 246 – 266 Orchard Street LLC and to Nechama Langenauer.

“I’m so saddened and so frustrated,” Freeman said about the disconnect between the health department, the housing authority, and the property management company that runs 264 Orchard St. ​“We’ve always complied. I strive for it to be a good place. You’re working your hardest to make it a good place.”

She said she plans to follow the health department’s lead abatement order now that she has a copy as of Tuesday night (as provided via email by this reporter.)

2 Agencies, 2 Responses

According to Amy Marx, the New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorney who is representing Holmes and her daughter and who has represented several lead poisoning cases in the city’s housing court in recent months, the 264 Orchard case is an example of two very different types of public agency responses to childhood lead poisoning in New Haven.

The housing authority, she said, jumped into high gear and stripped the landlord of her federal housing subsidy when she failed to abate the property in a timely manner. Another agency, the health department, failed to enforce the city’s deadlines by which the landlord legally had to start and finish abatement of the property.

“The dysfunctionality of the health department is undermining the housing authority’s best efforts to truly protect our children,” Marx said. ​“The housing authority is doing the right thing. But the health department is undermining it.”

Freeman said that the landlord, who owns a dozen properties primarily in Dwight, West River, and Westville, and the property management company should not be punished for the city’s failure to communicate such an urgent message.

The city’s health department and the city’s spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article. The repeated public criticism about the department’s lead record — including court revelations that it maintains only written, not computerized, records of inspections — has led the Harp administration to form a working group to study improvements.

Lead Poisoning And Lost Letter

Holmes, 43, has lived in the first-floor apartment at 264 Orchard St. for the past seven years. She has two teenage children in addition to her 2‑year-old, Riley.

In July, Holmes took Riley for a routine check-up at Fair Haven Community Health Care and soon found out that her youngest child had a blood lead level of nine mg/dL.

On Sept. 10, city lead inspector Glenda Buenaventura visited the first-floor apartment and found toxic levels of lead paint throughout the unit’s living room, bedroom, bathroom, hallway, and stairwell.

And so on Sept. 12, the health department sent a lead abatement order for the apartment to Langenauer.

“The Director of Health has determined that the presence of such lead-based paint and chipped and flaking paint constitutes health hazards,” the Sept. 12 abatement order’s standardized language reads. ​“Since there are one or more children with an elevated blood lead level residing on the premises, the aforementioned conditions constitute grounds for issuance of this Order.”

The lead abatement order lays out a timeline, dictated by city law, that Langenauer had to follow upon receiving the order. According to the order, Langenauer had to post notices of the presence of toxic lead levels at the building’s various entrances within two days of receiving the order; she had to submit a lead abatement plan to the city’s health department within five days of receiving the order; she had to commence lead abatement work at the property within seven days of receiving the order; and she had to complete the lead abatement of the property within 30 days of receiving the order.

Marx and Holmes said that 41 days after the health department sent the initial abatement order, Langenauer had met none of the city’s requirements.

Freeman said that the reason the property management company and the landlord have not yet acted is simply because they never received the order, and did not know until this reporter sent over an electronic copy of the report on Tuesday night exactly which areas of the apartment need to be abated.

The health department sent the lead abatement order to P.O. 203832 and addressed the order to 264 – 266 Orchard Street LLC and to Nechama Langenauer. Freeman said that sometimes physical letters sent to the P.O. Box but not addressed to Freeman & Co. do not make their way to the property management company’s actual address at 157 Church St.

After reviewing the lead abatement order on Tuesday night, Freeman said that she will post lead hazard notices at the building’s entrances on Wednesday, will work on immediately evacuating Holmes and her daughter to a hotel or other temporary residence as they look for more permanent replacement housing, and will submit a lead abatement plan to Buenaventura for approval by the health department.

“It’s been stressful,” Holmes said about the past month and a half.

She said she recently left her job as a school bus driver because of her own health problems, the lingering trauma of her 23-year-old son’s recent death, and because of the stress of trying to find a new place to live while also worrying about her daughter being poisoned.

“I notice a change in her,” she said of Riley, cradling the 2‑year-old in her lap as her daughter played with a small stuffed animal elephant toy.

“I noticed a definite difference in how she’s talking, in how she’s learning. Months ago, before this summer, she was so fluent with her talking, with her speech, and with her words. Now she’s struggling. It could be all in my mind, but maybe it’s not. She has the same interests, but it’s almost like she went backwards.”

Holmes said that she first told Freeman about the lead issue at her apartment several weeks ago, and that Freeman replied that she had never received an order from the health department. Holmes and Freeman both said that they met together on Tuesday afternoon and that Freeman told the tenant that she still had not received anything from the city about the lead hazards.

Holmes said that she has not heard anything at all from the city about lead in her apartment since Buenaventura first inspected the property on Sept. 10.

Since Holmes is a recipient of Section 8 housing subsidies, Marx decided to put pressure not just on the city’s health department but also on Elm City Communities in her attempts to get the apartment abated and get Holmes and her daughter into a safe new apartment.

On Oct. 19, Marx wrote a letter to city Health Department Director Byron Kennedy and to Elm City Communities Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton. Marx requested that the two agency heads take immediate action to relocate her client to a unit that has been screened for lead hazards.

She also wrote that the health department should take over the lead abatement of the 264 Orchard unit and that the landlord must not be allowed to re-rent the apartment to any other families until the lead abatement is complete.

“In light of recent litigation between tenants and the Health Department,” Marx wrote, ​“and ongoing discussions between New Haven Legal Assistance Association and the City regarding needed improvements in Health Department lead program policy and protocol, we hope that Ms. Holmes can obtain the above requested relief immediately without a lawsuit for injunctive relief.”

Three days after Marx sent her letter, the housing authority called Holmes to its Orange Street headquarters and formally gave her permission to take her Section 8 voucher to a new apartment.

On that same day, Ribeiro sent the abatement letter to Langenauer and Freeman & Co., declaring that the landlord and property management company will no longer receive Section 8 dollars for the first-floor apartment of 264 Orchard St. starting on Nov. 1.

“We asked the housing authority, and it kicked into instant action,” Marx said. ​“We also asked the health department, and we’ve gotten no response.”

Marx’s letter also reads that NHLAA first contacted the health department on Sep. 28 about its concerns about lead at 264 Orchard.

“The Health Department did not respond to the communication by counsel,” the letter reads, ​“and has allowed the child to remain in the hazardous unit well beyond the time frame mandated in the order.”

Marx praised the housing authority for requiring, as of 2014, that all apartments housing children under the age of six must a pass a lead inspection prior to the leasing of those units. Since Holmes has been living at 264 Orchard for the past seven years, however, her tenancy predates the local housing authority’s pre-move-in lead inspection requirement.

DuBois-Walton said via email that this is the first case where the housing authority has discontinued a landlord’s Section 8 subsidy payments solely for lead reasons since 2014, when the housing authority implemented procedures consistent with federal lead free housing rules.

“Our role is to notify the health department and HUD of the finding of an elevated lead level,” DuBois-Walton said about the housing authority’s current obligations regarding this property. ​“We notify the landlord of his/her obligation to abate. We work with the resident to find a new apartment and enter into a new HAP contract. We ensure that no further HAP funds are paid to the landlord for that unit. We play no role in the clean up of private property. In the future, the property could not be leased under one of our vouchers to another resident without documentation of abatement.”

However, Marx said, she believes that the Housing Authority did drop the ball in its biennial/triennial Housing Quality Standards (HQS) inspections of the property, which are required for the recertification of Section 8 eligible landlords.

She said the latest round of HQS inspections of the Orchard Street property should have revealed the presence of dangerous levels of lead paint well before the health department’s Sept. 10 inspection in response to Riley’s elevated blood lead level.

“Section 8 messed up,” Freeman said about the lead hazards that the housing authority should have found in prior HQS inspections. ​“Now they’re going to turn around and penalize the landlords?”

Marx said that the housing authority relies on the city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative (LCI) to conduct HQS inspections and on the health department to conduct lead hazard inspections.

She said that the information that the housing authority acts on is only as good as what those city agencies provide.

Previous coverage:

• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead