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A boy who had lead poisoning is taunted. Who is responsible?

Chanelle Mattocks asked what any mother would in her situation: "Who do we hold responsible?" Before her family moved into a subsidized home in Washington that had been approved by city inspectors, she had a typical 3-year-old. Then, she noticed ...

Worst case of lead poisoning in Washington
Last year, a 2-year-old girl was declared to have the worst case of lead poisoning seen in Washington in decades. Washington Post photo by Linda Davidson

Chanelle Mattocks asked what any mother would in her situation: "Who do we hold responsible?"

Before her family moved into a subsidized home in Washington that had been approved by city inspectors, she had a typical 3-year-old. Then, she noticed paint chips in the boy's mouth during a bath and had him tested for lead. The results revealed he had double the amount considered "elevated."

My colleague Terrence McCoy wrote about Mattocks in an article last week.

Four years after the paint chip discovery, Mattocks has collected 100 books and reads often to the now-7-year-old to try to counter what she describes as one struggle on top of another:

He acts out in school.

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He writes backward.

His math scores are low.

He has difficulty reading and retaining words.

And other children have noticed, which has brought another challenge. They pick on him, telling him, "You're stupid."

Whom do we hold responsible?

It is an important question because it speaks not only to the past but also to the future. It speaks to what should never have happened to a 3-year-old and to what we know for certain will happen if that question is left unaddressed: There will be another child who puts a speck of paint in his mouth, or rubs a chubby toddler hand across a dusty windowsill and, in that moment, is forever altered.

Some people, of course, will feel the urge to put the bulk of the responsibility on these families because it is easier to criticize them for needing public help than to fix the system they rely on. The problem with that approach, besides the lack of compassion in it, is that there will always be people in need of public assistance, and if we ignore this issue, we are ensuring that these children will grow up to be among them.

Poverty does not have to be permanent. Cognitive damage all too often is.

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As Washington struggles to find enough housing for its homeless families, we know that city inspectors have already failed to detect hazardous lead in dozens of homes over the past five years.

The article about Mattocks contained this finding, which was based on information obtained in a records request by The Washington Post: At least 41 families between March 2013 and March 2018 were living in lead-contaminated homes that had been subsidized by a housing voucher and approved by city inspectors.

That number is alarming, but even more so if we consider how many children are likely to have lived in each of those homes and how many of their friends and young relatives visited. Mattocks alone has eight children. But even if each family had three or four, that would still mean hundreds of young people were exposed to a neurotoxin that has been proven to cause behavioral problems and learning disabilities.

That is unacceptable.

These families are among the city's most vulnerable residents. They are turning to Washington for help finding homes that are safe. What they are getting instead is housing that leaves them and their children at a further disadvantage.

Many of these children aren't just testing positive for lead, they are testing positive for high levels of it. Just last year, a toddler whose family moved into a home that had been approved by the city was found to have the worst case of lead poisoning seen in Washington in decades.

Experts and advocates for these families fault federal regulations, which Washington and other cities follow. For rentals that accept housing vouchers, only a visual inspection for peeling paint and not actual lead testing is required. The problem with that is obvious. Slap on some new paint and the place looks passable. Let a dog nibble at a wall or a child knock it with a toy or a pipe burst and suddenly what looked good a month ago is a looming hazard.

Rick White, a spokesman for the District Housing Authority, which performs many of the inspections, defended the city in the article about Mattocks with a telling phrase: "legal obligations." He said, "I do not want you, or your newspaper, mistakenly believing or inaccurately reporting that DCHA is not fully meeting its legal obligations."

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But does the city really want to set so low a bar when the stakes are this high?

The city has a moral obligation to these children and their families. It also has a financial obligation to taxpayers, since the cost of a proper inspection is significantly lower than for the healthcare and educational support children who are exposed to lead might require.

To find out how much cheaper, I called an inspector who is licensed in the District and Maryland and asked about the cost to inspect a condo in Washington.

Ronald Childs, the owner of Lead Inspection Services, said that for $300 he would do a visual inspection and collect dust from the floors and windowsills to send to a lab.

For $399, he would use a handheld, X-ray fluorescence device to test every surface for lead and provide instant results.

That's all it would have cost to prevent some of these children from having a lifetime of struggle.

Whom do we hold responsible?

There is plenty of responsibility to go around:

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The federal government for setting such an inadequate standard.

The city for accepting it and for allowing inspectors to approve contaminated homes.

Landlords who don't shell out the extra money for a proper inspection and who fail to adequately address problems once they've been identified.

And if we are being honest, if we ignore this and put no pressure on these entities to change, knowing that somewhere a little boy is being called "stupid" through no fault of his own, then we, too, are responsible.

This article was written by Theresa Vargas, a reporter for The Washington Post.

Worst case of lead poisoning in Washington
Chanelle Mattocks with her 7-year-old son, Alonzo. Washington Post photo by Marvin Joseph

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