She was relieved when crews placed a radon removal system in the basement of
her home in Sagamore Village this year, following the housing authority’s
reversal.
“I was just shocked that they actually did it,” she said.
In all, only 26 of 64 housing authorities said they had looked for radon as of
summer 2018, when the newsroom conducted its survey.
But six had no testing records to back up their claims, and a seventh, Milwaukee,
refused to provide documents unless The Oregonian/OregonLive paid $600. Of
the remaining 19 housing authorities, six hardly did anything, checking a single
basement, single apartment or single complex, for example.
In Pittsburgh, housing of cials tested for radon at more than 100 units in the Glen
Hazel Family Community development in 2017. They found heightened levels of
radioactivity in four, and two tested high a second time.
Then nothing happened. The housing authority blamed poor internal
communication amid a leadership change.
“It wasn’t really brought to the level it should have been,” Chuck Rohrer, a
housing authority spokesman, said in 2018.
In response to the newsroom’s inquiries, crews have since installed radon removal
systems in the four units that initially tested high for radon.
But of cials did not tell tenants why the new machinery was being installed. The
housing authority sent out a cryptic notice that it hired a contractor “to
undertake improvements to your apartment.”
The agency also didn’t do any testing on the rest of its public housing units,
omitting more than 90% of the apartments it owns.
This 2015 email is
to Portland, Maine’s
housing authority
director