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Syracuse Hoping To Start Home Inspections For Lead Paint Syracuse Hoping To Start Home Inspections For Lead Paint

By Pa Zong Lee

PA-ZONG LEE: In-house inspections for lead paint are in the hopes to start early next year. This long-overdue problem has been put aside for a year since the pandemic hit. Councilman Joe Driscoll says The Syracuse Division of Code Enforcement is looking to employ more people to tackle the overdue problem.

JOE DRISCOLL:The goal right now is to just get our funding and our team in place and be ready to go… uhh at the beginning of next year, January and February, to really be ready to launch this.

LEE: Just last year, the city declared lead paint a code violation. Driscoll brought together the Syracuse Lead Prevention Coalition who made the monumental move. Tim Saka, a member of the coalition, says the next step is in legislative hands.

TIM SAKA: Now the next phase mostly belongs to government officials, now take that ordinance and start implementing it by testing and uhh… doing screening around rental house and things like that so it’s kind of in their area to be able to make the plan happen.

LEE: Houses built before 1978 likely have lead paint and pose a huge threat in Syracuse, but who specifically does this affect?

SAKA: It becomes an issue immediately in the low-income families and the middle of rural areas and the cities and as you might know many of the houses are rental properties, and they don’t even have a choice to be able to live somewhere that doesn’t have lead paint.

LEE: A step in fighting injustice, Driscoll says they hope to bring forth the proactive plan to change lives for the better… in Syracuse, Pa-Zong Lee, N-C-C News.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — The city of Syracuse hopes to start home inspections for lead paint in the next year. Councilman Joe Driscoll said the Syracuse Division of Code Enforcement has been having unemployment issues but is moving quickly to hire and start up the lead prevention plan.

“When the code inspector goes in there to check to see if the house is up to snuff, they’re going to be doing dust swipes to test for the presence of lead… so, really, our goal is to have a proactive approach to identify the hazard before a child is poisoned,” said Driscoll.

This plan comes after the lead ordinance was passed last year and made lead paint a code violation in rental properties, in addition to allowing code inspectors to cite the hazard. This was, in part, many thanks to the Syracuse Lead Prevention Coalition. The pandemic paused the early efforts that Driscoll and the coalition had planned to tackle the lead problem, but it’s finally being brought back.

The Syracuse Lead Prevention Coalition is made up of many organizations, one of them being the CNY Rise Center. Tim Saka, the Board President from the center, has been a long advocate to eliminate lead poisoning in Syracuse.

“Syracuse has the most condensed poverty zip code in the nation, in the south side of the city,” said Saka. “Now it is on the Onondaga County Health Department hands, also in the city’s hands, to check all those houses and do an analysis of them, zip code by zip code, to find out which houses are most at risk and then inform the landlords, and the house owners to make sure the lead paint can be changed.”

Houses built before 1978 likely have lead paint and can be exposed to children living within. Saka said 600 children are tested positive for lead poisoning every year in Onondaga County, but COVID has hindered the process for people to get their children tested.

Driscoll said now the big challenge is holding landlords accountable, but the legal push is what’s helping this process. Just last month NY Attorney General Letitia James sued a landlord for having at least 18 children exposed to lead living in their rental properties.

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