Syracuse once had a lead paint removal program that was a national model for success. Over the course of nearly two decades, the city’s program received millions in federal funding and successfully removed lead hazards in more than 2,500 Syracuse households.

“We were riding high, we felt like we had a great program,” said Paul Driscoll, the city’s current commissioner of neighborhood and business development.

But those days are gone. Syracuse’s Lead Hazard Control Program was completely shut down near the beginning of 2016 after being denied federal lead funds for three years, beginning when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development criticized the city for its program in 2013.

The city applied again for funding in March, though, and is hoping to revive the program soon. Local lawmakers said the lead problem is increasingly becoming an issue that the city needs to address and fix.

While high blood lead level rates continue to decline in Onondaga County, Syracuse children living in some of the city’s oldest housing — which is concentrated in low-income areas — are still being exposed to lead-based paint because of deteriorating homes.

From 2009 to 2015, 12.3 percent of Syracuse children less than 6 years old had high blood lead levels, according to data from the Onondaga County Health Department. The highest numbers of lead inspections and violations in the city have been observed in low-income minority communities on the Near Westside, South Side and North Side.

Lead paint was banned for consumer use in 1978, after a link to developmental and learning disabilities was found.

“Lead is a huge concern, a huge concern for the health and mental abilities of our young people,” said Jean Kessner, the chair of the Syracuse Common Council Neighborhood Preservation committee.

Syracuse from 2014 to 2016 unsuccessfully applied for three HUD lead grants and one Healthy Homes Supplement for a total of about $10.2 million in lead funding. This lack of funding crippled the lead program and eventually led to its shutdown.

The city is now fighting to restart the program, in an attempt to better address the city’s lead poisoning problem. The Common Council approved its latest application for a lead grant, of $3.4 million, from HUD last month. Officials say they are optimistic that Syracuse will get the money. HUD’s competitive lead grants were the primary funding source for Syracuse’s lead program before it was shut down, Driscoll said.

Four years ago, HUD lambasted the Syracuse lead program for wrongly conducting lead inspections.

HUD officials in 2013 found that city lead inspectors were presuming lead paint existed in windows without testing them properly. Specifically, HUD found that when city inspectors discovered lead hazards associated with one window in a home during an inspection, they would presume and report that all windows in the home had lead hazards.

Common Councilor Chad Ryan said he believes this incident is connected to the city’s recent inability to get lead funding from HUD and the subsequent shutdown of the lead program.

HUD initially put Syracuse’s program on probation in January 2013 for its window practices, disqualifying the city from future federal lead funding. HUD also demanded the city repay the agency about $1.5 million for the money used to replace windows that had not been tested for lead properly.

That probation was lifted in 2014 following political pressure from Syracuse’s congressional delegation, and the $1.5 million was never collected, Driscoll said.

“Clearly it’s embarrassing to the city … to obviously have the highest need for these funds and not have (HUD) give them to you,” Ryan, representative of the Common Council’s second district, said. His district includes portions of Syracuse’s Westside and North Side — two areas that have both had high numbers of lead inspections and violations.

Wasim Ahmad | Staff Photographer 

Before 2013, the city received a total of nearly $30 million in HUD lead grants, officials said. Those funds, while mostly used for the removal program, were also used to support educational programs on the dangers of lead, offered through several city community centers, according to archived city council agendas.

While the city has received no HUD lead funding since the 2013 incident, Onondaga County’s lead removal program has received over $7 million in funds, according to the county.

The county’s lead program was started in 2001, said Martin Skahen, the director of Onondaga County’s community development. The county’s program operated separately from the city’s program, originally focusing on lead projects outside of the city, Skahen added.

The county though has increased its amount of spending on lead removal projects in the city since Syracuse’s lead program was shut down, according to the county. The county has on average spent about $1 million a year on lead removal projects in the city since 2013. In comparison, the county spent a total of just $40,475 on lead removal projects in Syracuse from 2001 to 2013.

There’s a need in the city for lead remediation, Skahen said, which is why without the Syracuse lead program the county has stepped in to conduct more lead removal projects, he added.

But some city officials still say this isn’t enough. Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner said in a statement in 2014 that the shutdown of Syracuse’s lead program effectively cost the city about $2 million to specifically address lead issues in the city. Syracuse typically walked away with about $3 million per lead grant when the city’s program had its applications for HUD grants accepted, according to HUD.

“As a councilor I feel like we’re being punished,” Ryan said, referring to HUD funding the county’s lead program and not the city’s program.

Driscoll, though, said he believes the 2013 incident is not the cause of the city’s inability to get lead funds. Instead, it’s because competition for the grants has increased, he said. Driscoll pointed to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis and said it brought the effects of lead poisoning into the national spotlight.

Issues like those in Flint prompted more cities to apply for lead remediation funding in recent years, he said.

No cities in New York state received HUD lead grants during the agency’s last round of funding in 2016. Rochester and New York City each received grants for about $3.7 million in funds in 2015. HUD opens applications for lead paint grants every year, Skahen said, and states and localities that are awarded funding must wait two years before again applying for more lead grants.

Kessner, who introduced the latest lead application to the Common Council last month, said she doesn’t know why Syracuse has lost the lead funding, but said the city needs to begin looking for more funding outside of HUD and has to focus on the lead poisoning issue in Syracuse.

“The city needs to get a successful grant application in,” Kessner said. “We need to fix this.”

Graphics by Emma Comtois | Digital Designer

Published on April 4, 2017 at 12:12 am

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek