Dozens of large housing authorities haven’t performed tests, either.
Many provided no explanation for their inaction. Steve Finn, the housing authority
director in the Boston suburb of Malden, Massachusetts, said simply that of cials
with his agency would start testing when HUD makes them.
Testing “is not required by HUD regulation,” Finn said in a statement. The agency
“will conduct such testing if law or regulation is revised.”
One of the nation’s largest public housing operators, Minneapolis, would have to
spend just $60,000 to test all 1,000 of its units with ground- oor exposure, based
on amounts incurred by other housing authorities.
But the housing authority spends its roughly $14 million annual maintenance
budget on “even more pressing safety and livability needs,” spokesman Jeff
Horwich said in a statement. He cited pest control and broken faucets as part of a
$152 million repair backlog.
“We operate in a bureaucratic world in which HUD ‘encourages’” housing
authorities to do many things, Horwich said. “They require many more, which
creates dif cult choices when we would like, of course, to address every potential
risk.”
How to test your home for radon
To see if tenants were breathing radon in buildings where housing authorities
have failed to look for it since HUD’s recommendation, The
Oregonian/OregonLive and its partners did their own testing.
Reporters distributed a few dozen kits per city in the following locations: Akron,
Ohio; Syracuse, New York; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Worcester, Massachusetts;
Huntsville, Alabama; and Denver.
Reporters and tenants deployed 4-inch by 6-inch envelopes containing charcoal.
To capture radon, test envelopes need to remain open and undisturbed for at least
three days. Once they’re sealed up, they can’t sit too long before being delivered