The city’s Health Department allowed the New York City Housing Authority to cover up test results showing hazardous levels of lead paint in a residential unit and skirt responsibility to remediate the conditions, even after a child was hospitalized with severe lead poisoning, a new lawsuit filed by the child’s mother alleges.
Ikasha Whitaker, a resident of NYCHA’s East River Houses in East Harlem, said in her lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday that the Health Department (DOHMH) allows NYCHA undue deference in challenging lead test results than it does to private landlords, despite the public housing agency’s history of covering up lead violations and its use of flimsy technology to test for lead hazards.
