“Ladies With Guns” Lead City On Lead

When ​“the ladies” entered ​“with their guns,” looking for lead, Mattie Hooks had lost her job, was on disability, and now was afraid she’d also lose her century-old Fair Haven home.

The ​“guns” were X‑ray flourescent devices designed to detect lead in paint. The ladies included Jennifer Sanjurjo of the city’s health department inspection team, Hooks not only did not lose her house — she’s on the verge of nabbing an interest-free, forgiveable $16,000 loan to abate all the lead conditions in her multi-family house.

That story emerged Tuesday at a press conference convened at the city health department organized by by Connecticut U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Elizabeth Esty.

The Congresswomen were there to seek support for their Healthy Homes Tax Credit Act. A companion to a similar bill introduced in the Senate by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, the act would provide a $5,000 tax credit to help homeowners remove plumbing that contains lead, abate lead paint and dust, as well as complete radon and asbestos abatement.

DeLauro said she wanted to meet the city’s health professionals in preparation for what she expects in the upcoming legislative session to be a tough fight, given budget constraints and Republican inaction lead issues despite the attention paid by the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s drinking water.

DeLauro said her colleagues from Michigan worry that when the story is out of the headlines, the hard work of infrastructure rebuilding and refocusing on lead poisoning —from paint as well as corroded water pipes —will prove more difficult.

In New Haven, concerns lead poisoning cluster around paint, not water infrastructure, said Health Department Director Byron Kennedy.

The new bill is designed to supplement the city’s successful lead inspection and abatement program from which Hooks is benefiting. Her loan will come out of federal Department Housing and Urban Development funds; the city’s health department has been awarded HUD loan funds for abatement for 20 years..

The city’s current funds have income eligibility requirements as well as insurance requirements — homeowners’ policies must allow the city to be a second mortgagee for five years. The loans are entirely forgiven after five years.

The new legislation offers no direct money but tax credits, and has no income limits. DeLauro and Esty said they’re seeking to call attention to the debilitating effects of lead on little kids in the wake of the water-borne lead poisoning catastrophe in Flint.

Sunday, June 5, the health department plans to conduct its 16th annual educational picnic at Lighthouse Point Park to ​“shine a light on lead safety.” It runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and everyone’s invited.

The city’s longtime environmental health director, Paul Kowalski, told the Congresswomen Monday that the city has set a standard in testing kids’ lead levels — five micrograms per deciliter of blood — that is significantly more stringent than the state’s 15 or 20 micrograms. Kennedy said the five microcrams is per the Center for Disease Control’s guidelines; one test with that amount triggers health department action.

When a doctor or a lab makes such info available to the department, as as required by law, Sanjurjo or the department’s four other inspectors take their ​“guns” — devices that emit radioactive gamma rays against a painted wall and measure the lead level — and begin to make a list of the ​“zapped” areas that need abatement.

That list of required fixes is presented to the landlord, with the city’s vow, if necessary, to seek criminal prosecution. In most cases, the city has worked cooperatively with homeowners, Kowalski said.

Back in 1995, the city recorded 420 children at or above a lead level of 20 micrograms per deciliter of blood, according to the health department. That number dropped to 119 children at or above a level of 10 micrograms in 2011 and has kept falling. The city received reports of 94 children with lead at that level in 2015.

Hooks described herself as so relieved to be getting her house right she feels like ​“a kid in a candy store.”

DeLauro heard from health department staffers around the table Monday that much more work needs to be done: The city’s housing stock is old, and old houses contain more lead paint. There isn’t always accurate screening of kids; when children, especially poor children, move from place to place, one environment can be safe and the screening test OK, yet the next residence can be toxic.

“Homes built before 1950, which includes 30 percent of the state’s homes, compared to just 19 percent nationally, are especially at risk for these elements. In New Haven, 83 percent of homes were built before 1978,” according to a release from the Congresswomen.

As the press event’s participants sipped coffee and nibbled bacon and bagels, DeLauro asked for human stories, like Hooks’s, to augment the tough facts — namely that according to the state’s health department count as of 2013, 200 Connecticut children had lead poisoning, and approximately 60,000 had lead exposure.

Hooks said she has nothing but kudos for the health department’s program, although she knew nothing about it, or the loan-for-abatement opportunity, and she called for more education.

Her lead-free journey began when her tenant, a HUD Section 8 rental subsidy beneficiary, told her the apartment in Hooks’s home would have to be inspected for lead before it was approved.

That’s what triggered the ladies ​“with guns” visit, their zapping her walls, and making her ​“freak out” that she might lose her home. The unfolding happy ending is that the abatement is on the verge of beginning, including replacement of windows, which is where a lot of loose lead dust accumulates, said Kowalski.

Other suggestions that were made at the gathering, and which DeLauro took notes on, included: not establishing new programs but strengthening existing ones; and more scrutinyof day care centers, although Kowalski made clear ​“We inspect all day cares, although the state health department licenses them.”