Advocates with Uniquely Free To Be Lead Free, Families for Lead Freedom Now, and A Tiny Home for Good have been working for three years to build the house at 1216 South Ave. Credit: Eddie Velazquez | Central Current

Families in Syracuse whose homes are having lead hazards fixed will have a place they can go as the remediation takes place. 

Local advocates said Thursday are in the final stages of rehabbing a house at 1216 South Ave. as a shelter for these families. 

Advocates with Uniquely Free To Be Lead Free, Families for Lead Freedom Now, and A Tiny Home for Good, say they have been working for the past three years to build a “lead freedom house” on South Avenue. Advocates would provide transitional housing and mentorship for three to six weeks for families battling lead poisoning in their own homes. 

“This would be the first of its kind in Onondaga County and would be dedicated to moving families into safety, and giving them the hope, and the future they deserve,” said Darlene Medley, the founder of Uniquely Free To Be Lead Free. Medley’s organization helps families affected by lead. 

“This is long overdue,” she added.

The program comes at a time when Syracuse and Onondaga County are facing a housing crisis and a lead paint crisis. A lack of housing options and the number of children dealing with lead poisoning have also pushed the city and county to announce plans for their own version of a “lead shelter.”

More than 10% of the children tested for lead in Syracuse showed elevated blood lead levels last year, according to county Health Department data. The consequences of high exposure to lead are severe and can include changes to children’s brain development, and cause other ailments like anaemia, hypertension, renal impairment, and immunotoxicity, according to the World Health Organization.

“If we had our way, we would have one of these types of houses on every side of town, so then we could really keep families into the neighborhoods that they come from,” Fair said. 

Advocates have been rebuilding the two-family, six-bedroom house  at 1216 South Ave. for the past year with $200,000 in state funds secured by State Sen. Rachel May. 

A Tiny Home For Good is handling construction and case management, while Uniquely Free and Families for Lead Freedom Now will screen potential tenants. The project is priced at around $265,000. Advocates hope the house can be up and running by Sept. 1. 

Two families will be able to live for free in the two three-bedroom apartments while they await repairs to their homes or look for another permanent housing option. 

Typically, these repairs can take up to three weeks and require families to leave their homes for the duration of the remediation work, advocates said. Families are then shuffled to a motel by Onondaga County or private landlords who pay for their accommodations.

“That takes that family out of their community, out of their neighborhoods, away from their schools,” said Oceanna Fair, an advocate from Families For Lead Freedom Now. “Having the house on South Avenue, they’ll be able to stay in their community.”

Darlene Medley (left), who created Uniquely Free To Be Lead Free, has been trying to created a “lead freedom house” for years. Andrew Lunetta (right) is the executive director of A Tiny Home for Good. The organization pitched in the property and about $50,000 to rehab the home. Credit: Eddie Velazquez | Central Current

Andrew Lunetta, the executive director of A Tiny Home for Good, said the soil under the house still has to be inspected for lead. Similarly, the organization will have to replace the water service line that connects the sidewalk to the water shut-off valve or the point where it connects to the main plumbing in the house. City data shows those pipes are made out of lead. 

When the house eventually opens its doors, Families for Lead Freedom Now and Uniquely Free will screen referred families coming from agencies like city code enforcement, the county Department of Health, and nonprofits tasked with rehousing residents facing housing instability. 

These organizations typically act as links in a chain of support for families facing lead poisoning. They all help tenants find temporary or permanent housing after their homes become unsafe. The county can in some cases pay for hotel accommodations, a solution that Fair said has not been successful. 

Some families have been moved from the city to hotels in Salina, Fair said. Landlords can be reluctant to relocate families because paying for a family’s stay in a hotel can be expensive, Fair said. 

Advocates are still trying to figure out how they would bill landlords for providing accommodations to their tenants. Tenants’ stays would be free, but they would have to provide their own basic necessities like groceries, Fair said.

Advocates anticipate having to create a waitlist due to demand. Families whose children are being treated for lead poisoning would take priority, Fair said.  

While in the house, tenants will receive education about what it is like to manage elevated blood lead levels, how to clean certain surfaces identified as lead hazards, and how to navigate other systems like city schools and local healthcare. 

“We hope that this is only the beginning. And we’re also hoping that our house will set the example, for how these things need to be run,” Fair said. “Usually lead is just what gets us in the door, but then there’s this whole other set of needs that come behind that.”

A “lead freedom house” for families fleeing the threat of lead poisoning and the impacts it can have on children has been an idea years in the making. 

Medley, whose set of twins have been poisoned by lead, rehabilitated a house on West Colvin Street in the summer of 2023 with the hopes that it would become that shelter for her community. Those plans did not immediately pan out, but Medley kept working alongside other advocates to keep the idea alive. 

“I am speechless, seeing a dream come to fruition like this is different,” Medley said. “After everything I have been through, everything my sons have been through, it was worth it.”

Last year, Sen. May’s office connected Medley and Fair with A Tiny Home for Good, an organization building and managing safe housing for individuals coming out of the shelter system. A Tiny Home for Good had just acquired a home at 1216 South Ave., which lined up with Medley’s idea. 

Advocates devised a plan to turn the house into a home. Medley and Fair have said they took cues from the Ronald McDonald House Charities, an organization that houses parents of children with grave illnesses as they undergo treatment. 

Sen. May secured a $200,000 grant from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, A Tiny Home for Good pitched in the property, and more than $50,000 to renovate the house. Families for Lead Freedom Now threw in another approximately $10,000 to ensure the two units have new appliances. 

“This is an insanely pervasive problem that isn’t going to get better unless we start to figure out some solutions,” said Lunetta, the executive director of A Tiny Home for Good. “I’m really attracted to solutions and this is a straightforward one to me.”

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...