Tiesha Jones was awarded $57 million in a judgment against the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) after a jury found the agency responsible for her daughter’s lead poisoning.
Now, she’s an advocate for other families struggling with health hazards in their home.
No amount of lead in child’s blood is considered safe, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement,” CDC website states. “And effects of lead exposure cannot be corrected.”
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Jones’ daughter Dakota ended up in special education classes, despite city assurance that her apartment at Fort Independence development in the Bronx was lead free.
But in January 2010, Dakota’s blood tested at 45 micrograms of lead per deciliter. The ideal level would be zero. At 5-microgram levels the CDC recommends a public health action.
“I was mortified,” Jones said, according to The New York Daily News. “They sent me letters every year stating that there’s no lead in the apartment. Here I was thinking I was safe, taking care of my children.”
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After Jones sounded the alarm on her daughter’s apparent poisoning, the city’s Health Department officials came to test her apartment for lead. They also tested the apartment of Dakota’s babysitter (also at Fort Independence) and the apartment of the girl’s grandmother at another location—all the places where Dakota spent her days.
Lead paint was detected at both Fort Independence apartments. Not at the grandmother’s place.
NYCHA did its own lab tests and said no lead was found at Jones’ apartment.
Jones sued.
“The damage had already been done,” she said. “[Dakota] didn’t have a chance to go to regular school ... She got held over in special ed in second grade.”
On Jan. 26, a jury sided with Jones’ argument that NYCHA failed to perform mandatory lead tests at her apartment and then lied about the results, leading to her daughter’s poisoning.
NYCHA was slapped with $57 million penalty.
Jones has moved her family to Bailey Houses, another NYCHA development a few blocks away from Fort Independence. And, just as at Fort Independence, she’s been pointing out poor conditions at Bailey Houses too, calling it “a house of horrors.”
She’s been urging the tenant families to test their children for lead.
Trouble with NYCHA
NYCHA houses about 400,000 mostly low-income people. (pdf) The rent is, at minimum, 30 percent of the tenant’s gross income. The more income the tenant reports, the higher the rent, capped at about $1,200 for a one-bedroom apartment. (pdf) The average rent is about $460, a fraction of what commercial rent would be in the city.
NYCHA’s 328 developments suffer a massive backlog of needed repairs, expected to cost over $25 billion, according to the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission. In 2013, NYCHA had a backlog of over 420,000 work orders. Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to cut the backlog. It decreased to over 120,000 by April 2015, but the city’s Comptroller’s audit found the number “significantly understated.” NYCHA was pushing its workers to falsify some work orders so it would look like repairs have been completed, while they were not, an employee told CBS2, having his voice and appearance disguised for fear of retaliation.
In December, De Blasio’s Housing Authority Chair Shola Olatoye admitted that NYCHA did not perform required lead inspections from 2012 to 2016 while reporting to federal authorities it did. De Blasio refused calls for Olatoye to be fired, The New York Post reported.
Credit: Tribune - PIX11 - New York via VideoElephant
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