City Council Member Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Gravesend) yesterday called for an immediate investment for New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings in the wake of the city’ Department of Investigation (DOI) that found the agency failed to conduct lead inspections and fraudulently reported that they did.
Treyger’s call for allocating more money to NYCHA came following the Council’s Committee on Public Housing hearing examining the lack of lead testing.
“The DOI’s report made it clear that NYCHA failed to do right by its tenants, by refusing to conduct lead inspections and then, most perhaps egregiously, covering up their dereliction of duty. This deserves full investigation and consequences, but it is equally important to ensure that this investigation leads to tangible improvements in the safety of our NYCHA developments and the well-being of NYCHA residents,” said Treyger, co-chair of the council’s Brooklyn delegation.
“Ultimately, this investigation will produce an explanation of how NYCHA came to abdicate its responsibility to conduct lead inspections, and why the agency chose to lie in its reports to HUD; however, the root problem facing us is decades of systemic disinvestment in the maintenance and capital needs of our public housing stock,” he added.
In addition to supporting a rigorous investigation and appropriate consequences for those who failed to act to protect children in NYCHA buildings from the dangers of lead exposure, Treyger is advocating for robust capital reinvestment in NYCHA properties to address fundamental infrastructure issues.
The investment will pay for removing decades-old lead paint to properly remediating mold and repairing mold-inducing conditions.
“The fact that lead paint—banned by New York City nearly 60 years ago—persists in NYCHA developments in 2017 is as shameful as the agency’s failure to conduct required inspections and submission of falsified reports to the federal government,” said Treyger.
Tryeger, whose district includes a number of NYCHA developments in the Coney Island portion of his district, said in addition to serious lead problems, NYCHA buildings struggle with leaking roofs, persistent mold infestations, outdated plumbing, and out-of-service elevators.
In conjunction with independent oversight and monitoring, we need to make major investments to better protect the health, safety, and quality of life of our NYCHA residents. If we had historically funded NYCHA as much as we talked about its failings, we wouldn’t be facing many of the disturbing issues we are now confronting,” he said.
Treyger was one of a number of city council members that blasted NYCHA and its’ Chairwoman Shola Olatoye at a nearly five-hour committee hearing yesterday on the issue.
