Despite years of disruptive maintenance that has cost the city millions of dollars and forced some families to temporarily relocate from their homes, the D.C. Housing Authority has failed to rectify lead paint hazards in many of its public housing units on time, finds a new report by the D.C. Auditor.

In 48% of the cases examined, the housing authority blew past the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 30-day deadline for fixing deteriorated lead paint, the report says. In units where children under 6 lived, the agency fared even worse: It took longer than 90 days to fix lead paint hazards in 77% of these apartments, and in many cases more than a year.

Children aged 6 or younger are the most susceptible to lead exposure, which can lead to long-term developmental problems if left untreated. At least 96% of the District’s conventional public housing complexes were constructed before 1978 and are therefore presumed to contain at least some lead-based paint. (Lead paint was common before the federal government banned its use in homes that year.)

“This audit raises significant concerns about the safety of residents in public housing in terms of lead-based paint exposure,” says the report. “DCHA’s failure to act quickly and competently put children at additional risk of lead exposure.” The findings come as the housing authority makes plans to redevelop a chunk of its complexes into mixed-income housing, largely with the help of private developers.

The housing authority didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from DCist. But in a response included in the report, DCHA’s executive director strongly rejected the conclusions, calling one in particular “improper and incorrect.”

D.C.’s public housing has long put tenants at risk of — if not outright caused — physical illness. Some have reported increased blood-lead levels as a result of their housing conditions, while others, including children, have been hospitalized for mold-induced asthma attacks.

The auditor’s office reviewed 61 of the risk assessment reports the housing authority contracted to identify the location of lead based paint; it examined DCHA’s lead-abatement enforcement actions between October 2017 and May 2019. The report alleges that the agency violated local and federal housing laws because it can’t prove that it conducts routine lead-based paint maintenance, which involves visual inspections of each unit at least once annually.

The report suggests that the housing authority doesn’t understand its legal obligation to address lead paint hazards, saying “DCHA believed that it was exempt from requirements to check for and fix deteriorated paint until after they completed their [portfolio-wide] review of lead risk assessments.”

D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson says the District does have strong policies against lead risks, but they aren’t always enforced. “Good policies don’t mean much unless there is effective enforcement and effective mitigation,” she tells DCist in an interview.

In his response to the report, DCHA executive director Tyrone Garrett argues that the housing authority did what it could with limited resources, and that the agency has since completed other lead abatement work. He also takes issue with the report’s finding that the housing authority misunderstands its legal obligations.

“Without contextualizing lead paint compliance within the Portfolio-wide obligations DCHA must address with insufficient funds, the Audit Report leaves the reader with a misimpression regarding DCHA’s ability to address all of the issues facing the Public Housing Portfolio,” Garrett writes. “Nowhere is this more apparent than in [the auditor’s] conclusory and misguided statement that implementing [its] recommendations comes at no cost.”

He adds that the agency “strongly objects to [the auditor’s] improper and incorrect conclusion that by relocating residents to lead-safe housing, DCHA demonstrated a lack of understanding of federal regulations during the audit period.”

The housing authority’s efforts to remediate lead paint issues across its aging housing stock have been time-consuming and costly. Still, Garrett championed them as evidence of a new era at the agency when he took charge in 2017. (Garrett is known for saying  the housing authority is no longer “ the same old agency” under his leadership.)

In April 2018, DCHA submitted a lengthy plan to HUD that hinged on resolving its backlog of maintenance requests. The plan outlined how the agency would reorganize its risk management and environmental compliance departments, conduct inspections, better notify residents about the status of their maintenance requests, train staff, and launch a public education campaign. 

At the time, DCHA faced a backlog of tens of thousands of requests throughout its ailing portfolio. Garrett said one-third of DCHA’s units were becoming nearly “uninhabitable” because of their conditions. One of his first moves was to tackle the lead paint hazards, since those posed an immediate danger to residents and were generally easier to fix than the structural issues at DCHA properties. 

In fiscal year 2019, Garrett estimated it would cost DCHA nearly $20 million to address lead paint hazards, but this sum didn’t include nearly $9 million in costs to relocate families during that work. To date, the agency has spent $9.1 million on lead abatement and about $1.2 million to relocate residents, according to Garrett.

By February 2019, Garrett says, the housing authority addressed lead paint hazards in all units known to have children under 6, except for those in the buildings that DCHA was considering redeveloping. (The agency has since addressed, or is in the process of addressing, the remaining repairs for these units, per Garrett.)

 But the auditor’s report indicates that DCHA staff bungled the execution of this plan, either because the housing authority failed to properly document its efforts or because it didn’t perform necessary maintenance on time.

In 32% of the cases covered in the report, lead hazards “were cleared very late — in an average of 408 days.” In another 19% of the cases, the housing authority accepted clearance reports showing only some of the identified hazards were fixed. And in yet another 26% of the cases, the agency “had no evidence” that maintenance was performed “well over a year after lead-based paint hazards were first discovered,” says the auditor.

The report also alleges that the housing authority’s record-keeping practices are insufficient. 

“Inspection documents used to categorize tenant complaints were often saved in hard copy at properties but not uploaded to the agency’s central database system,” it says. “Further, staff at DCHA’s privately managed properties used scheduling systems and protocols separate from those used at DCHA-managed properties. The work order form used by DCHA was also out of compliance with HUD guidelines.” 

Compounding these issues is the lack of meaningful oversight by city agencies, according to the auditor: Both the Department of Energy and Environment and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs say they currently don’t have the authority to inspect or sanction DCHA properties for failing to comply with local housing laws. 

In effect, the auditor says public housing residents don’t get the same protections from lead-based paint hazards as residents who live in private properties. The housing authority manages approximately 8,000 units at more than 50 properties across the city.