City of Hackensack signs “Model Lead-Safe City” agreement with NJ Public Advocate

Hackensack to implement aggressive actions to prevent childhood lead poisoning – will partner with schools, health care community

HACKENSACK –The City of Hackensack today signed a landmark agreement with the New Jersey Public Advocate to aggressively respond to and prevent the problem of childhood lead poisoning.

View Hackensack Model Lead-Safe City Agreement
 

“Today we focus our efforts on keeping the children of this city safe from this entirely preventable and very serious public health concern,” stated Deputy Mayor Marlin Townes, who signed today’s agreement.

At the conclusion of a ceremony in Hackensack City Council chambers, New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen and Townes signed an agreement designating Hackensack as the state’s fifth “Model Lead-Safe City.”

The Public Advocate has signed similar agreements with the cities of Camden, East Orange and Elizabeth and the township of Irvington.

“The City of Hackensack is to be commended for taking such an aggressive stance against childhood lead poisoning and for partnering with the schools and with the healthcare community to ensure a comprehensive lead screening effort,” said Chen, who unveiled a report in April that showed that thousands of children in New Jersey are poisoned in their homes every year due to exposure to deteriorating lead-based paint.

According to the Public Advocate’s report, the childhood lead poisoning problem was determined to be particularly acute in the state’s major cities. In response to the report, Governor Jon S. Corzine has signed an executive order requiring state departments to tighten their lead poisoning prevention activities.

Approximately 82% of Hackensack’s housing was built before 1978, when the national ban on the sale of lead paint went into effect, and approximately 33% of the housing in Hackensack was built before 1950 when the level of lead in paint was at its highest.

There were about 2,900 children under the age of six in Hackensack in State Fiscal Year 2006.

Under the Model Lead-Safe City agreement signed today, city officials committed to take steps to: improve educational outreach on the issue; expand the number of children screened for lead poisoning; improve the inspections of properties that may be lead-burdened; crack down on landlords who fail to abate lead-contaminated properties; and provide improved relocation assistance and more lead-safe housing to affected families.

Specifically, the city will:

• Designate a Model Lead-Safe City Coordinator
• Distribute education materials through the public schools, child care centers, Head Start programs, and pediatrician offices.
• Utilize geographic mapping software provided by UMDNJ to identify areas where children are most at risk and target those areas for additional screening.
• Train more health inspectors to become lead inspectors.
• Require that all people living in a multi-unit dwelling be notified if a child who lives there is diagnosed with lead poisoning
• Track down landlords who refuse to comply with abatement orders.
• Work with the state to identify lead-safe housing and work with local nonprofits to relocate lead-burdened families to lead-free housing.

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