THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610200040
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 125 lines
Darryl Jackson remembers how a young niece ``felt nauseated and was staying tired all the time'' until she was treated for lead-paint poisoning.
Now, Jackson has a chance to help dozens of children avoid getting sick as his niece did. He's part of a ``healthy house crew,'' working to make older houses and apartments safe from lead-based paint.
``It's good for me, too,'' said Jackson, 38, of Calvert Square, who was working odd jobs before being hired and trained through a new neighborhood-based program, Prevention Through Partnerships.
The program aims to help people like Jackson learn skills for the job market, preserve affordable housing, educate parents and property owners about lead paint, encourage owners to abate the problems, and give grass-roots groups another way to improve neighborhoods.
Prevention's partners include government and nonprofit agencies, such as Norfolk's Health Department and the nonprofit Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project, as well as a grass-roots citizens group - the Park Place Redevelopment Foundation.
In its current demonstration phase, 75 percent of the work will be done in Park Place, where many low- to moderate-income residents live in old homes and apartment buildings with lead-based paint.
``I like this program because they're helping kids and they're also helping the people in the neighborhood,'' said Park Place resident Littleton Everett, a painter with one of the crews. ``It's jobs for the community, so it's really putting money back into the community, and it's saving lives. So it's really a beautiful thing they've got going.''
Last week, Everett, Jackson and fellow crew members were garbed head-to-toe in protective uniforms as they worked in two vacant apartments at 114 W. 33rd St.
Floors were covered with a clear vinyl plastic. Red-and-white signs reading ``Warning - Lead Work Area - Poison - No Smoking or Eating'' hung from doors and walls.
The work included refitting the windows to move along newly installed plastic tracks. This would prevent scraping of wood against wood, which causes paint to flake, said Nelson White, a professional painter and head of the Park Place Redevelopment Foundation.
Making a home ``lead safe'' does not necessarily mean scraping off all lead-based paint before repainting a surface, White said. Problem areas can be treated in other ways.
``There are areas in a home where lead-based paint can be left alone if there's good maintenance,'' said Kris Meek, the program's coordinator in the health department. ``That brings down costs and helps preserve affordable housing, which is a critical need in Norfolk. A lot of properties are marginal because tenant rents are low and the costs of doing the renovation work could take a long, long time to recover.''
Refitting and refinishing old windows costs about $75 each, while new windows could be $250 apiece, White said. Prevention Through Partnerships covers costs up to $2,000 per house or apartment.
The program is being funded with a $1.6 million, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The goal is to do 200 housing units.
The low cost to property owners helped convince Marc Poutasse, a Park Place landlord, to allow Prevention Through Partnerships to work in his apartments. ``I considered it an opportunity, particularly in an economically distressed area like Park Place,'' he said.
Poutasse charges $305 a month for the two-bedroom apartments, including water and sewer fees. But, he said, it is not enough to offset maintenance and renovation costs. A similar apartment would rent for twice the amount in the affluent Ghent neighborhood, he said.
Also, if city inspectors uncovered the hazards, Poutasse would be required to make his apartments lead free instead of lead safe, as he can now because he volunteered his property. He already had been cited at another property, he said.
Landlords also could call on the program to train their own maintenance crews to reduce lead hazards, especially when they work on the property between tenants.
``This gives property owners a chance to step forward,'' said Jessie Booker, Prevention Through Partnerships project manager. ``In the past, we always waited for a child to be poisoned.''
Norfolk's Health Department finds several hundred children annually with elevated levels of lead in their blood. This year, so far, 836 cases have been reported, including some repeated incidents.
In turn for help with improvements, Booker said, landlords must agree to make their property available to families who have children 6 years old and younger.
Prevention Through Partnerships is spreading the word in several ways, including get-togethers with landlords and realty agents.
It also aims at residents, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. This summer, the program hired 36 teen-agers to distribute information door-to-door.
By mid-November, six Park Place women will be hired to go to parent meetings in schools and visit the homes of families with very young children.
In the homes, the women will demonstrate how to find and clean lead-based paint without making it peel or flake, said Earlean White, coordinator of the educational program and wife of Nelson White.
White is excited about the program because her daughter, Thelma, now 18, suffered lead poisoning as a child. ``She's all right, now,'' White said. ``But I know the pains my baby went through.''
The women also will ask residents for permission to take ``wipe tests'' to determine if the paint already is dangerous. ``Being residents in the neighborhoods ourselves, we could gain entry easier than if we were from the Health Department,'' White said.
Work crews will be sent to homes that test positive, she said.
``Lead-safe'' techniques also help crew members develop a broader range of skills, including carpentry.
Employees will have a built-in incentive to seek private-sector jobs, Nelson White said, because they can stay with Prevention Through Partnerships for only five months before new workers are brought on. The goal is to train 50 people over the two-year grant period.
``We don't want this to be another program where we have jobs just as long as the government grant is there,'' White said.
White believes there is plenty of lead-hazard reduction work in the private market because of newer environmental laws and housing renovation in affluent neighborhoods, as well as poor communities.
But for White and the ``healthy house crews,'' the bottom line is the health of children.
``It's about the kids,'' said Brenda Scott, 38, of Brambleton, who gave up a job as a certified nursing assistant to work on the front line against lead poisoning. ``There are some real high levels out there. Like wow! When I heard how I could help do something, I said `this is something for me.' '' MEMO: For information on Prevention Through Partnerships, call Jessie
Booker, 683-2307. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot
Kym Sumner, left, and Littleton Everett refit windows in a Park
Place residence. The windows will move on plastic tracks, which
prevents the scraping of wood that causes lead paint to flake. by CNB