Brooklyn mom calls for accountability after lead detected in son's system, in walls of NYCHA apartment

She joined Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams at the Van Dyke Houses to call for accountability and immediate assistance from NYCHA. The mother says she has been trying to get answers for years and is concerned about her son's health.

News 12 Staff

Oct 26, 2020, 1:54 AM

Updated 1,448 days ago

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A Brooklyn mom says she is continuing to call for justice and accountability from the New York City Housing Authority after lead was detected in her son's system -- and in walls in her apartment at the Van Dyke Houses in Brownsville.
The woman took News 12 on a tour of her apartment. She says several years ago, she took her son for a routine checkup at the doctor's office, where they detected levels of lead in his blood.
She joined Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams at the Van Dyke Houses to call for accountability and immediate assistance from NYCHA. The mother says she has been trying to get answers for years and is concerned about her son's health.
She says tests found the highest concentrations of lead in a wall in her kitchen and an adjacent pipe.
This comes after a recent federal monitor revealed at least 9,000 apartments inside the New York City Housing Authority and across the city have been found to contain lead. These apartments are often found in buildings where children live or spend a lot of time. That is three times the number of apartments with lead that NYCHA has previously acknowledged.
Lead can be very hazardous to children, causing cognitive developmental delays, especially when they are exposed at a young age.
A NYCHA spokesperson told News 12 in a statement in part, "NYCHA is aggressively working to identify apartments where there are children under 6 years old, and our monumental efforts to overhaul our lead program have resulted in the nation’s most comprehensive assessment of public housing apartments presumed to have lead-based paint."