Central Current reported this story with funding from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

Darlene Medley knew she needed to move out of her North Side apartment. City of Syracuse codes officials had found lead paint and lead dust in the apartment in September 2022.

Her children had been dealing with the consequences of lead poisoning for years before that. 

In July 2023, a Child Protective Service worker told Medley she had to move her kids from the apartment or they’d be taken. But Medley had been looking for safe and affordable housing for the last year and came up empty. 

The CPS worker connected Medley with a city employee who told Medley she could get help through Catholic Charities — the same organization who put Medley in the North Side home with chipping lead paint. 

Medley’s case shows the limitations in the tools Onondaga County and city officials have to help residents living in homes with lead paint, according to advocates fighting lead poisoning. 

For Medley, the issue is not that the city and Onondaga County lack programs to help residents. It has hundreds of thousands of dollars to do just that. However, the programs available rely on agencies already stretched thin. And a lack of housing options continuously place families in homes that pose lead poisoning risks to their children.

“The other housing (they are referred to) isn’t safe, if they can even afford it,” said Oceanna Fair, a member of Families for Lead Freedom Now, an organization that aims to prevent childhood lead poisoning in the county.

“They’re basically just going from one crappy apartment to another crappy apartment with the same issues.”

Medley’s case also raises other questions: How does Catholic Charities screen homes they’re placing families in for lead paint? How much capacity does Catholic Charities have to relocate tenants and ensure their stability? How available are lead-safe homes for families?

While Medley’s case raises those questions, Catholic Charities said in a statement to Central Current it doesn’t have time to answer them over the phone or in person. The organization did not respond to a subsequent email with detailed questions about how they help relocate families dealing with unsafe housing conditions.

Medley’s disillusionment with the relocation system led her to a donor who gave her a home she remediated and certified as a lead-free shelter. She fixed up the house and has been living in it since October while she finds something more permanent. 

As testing for lead poisoning ramps up and the need for lead-safe homes outpaces their availability, advocates worry the system could become more overwhelmed than it already is. The city has issued more than 1,200 code enforcement citations for issues with lead paint across hundreds of homes as rents increase, salaries stagnate and those that need help compete for the same few units.

City and county officials say they share concerns over a lack of affordable, safe, and stable housing. But they note that relocation services are available to tenants who need them and that a high number of property owners address unsafe housing conditions within the allotted time frame.

“Unfortunately, right now, this is not a housing market that allows for quick mobility,” said Michael Collins, the city’s director of Neighborhood and Business Development. “The availability of units that are safe, that are affordable is limited.”

Darlene Medley took it upon herself to fix up a home and create a “lead shelter” to house families who need to be relocated. She is wearing a T-shirt with a picture of her son Nyquan Williams. Mike Greenlar | Central Current

‘The landlord is not being held accountable’

Medley’s experiences at her former apartments are an example of a series of government systems failing, she said. 

Catholic Charities moved Medley in 2017 to an apartment at 513 Pond St. in the city’s North Side from. The foundation of the Rockland Avenue apartment crumbled and code apartment officials deemed it unfit to live in.

Two of Medley’s children, Devon and Rashad, showed elevated blood-lead levels about a year after moving to 513 Pond St. at a health check-up to recertify the family’s Women, Infants, and Children nutritional benefits.

Issues with lead paint persisted for years at the Pond Street apartment. Medley repeatedly asked two separate landlords who owned the property at different times to fix the deteriorating paint, she said. 

Code enforcement officers deemed the apartment unfit for human habitation last fall. Her former landlord, Hamzy Hidais, a New York City real estate agent, offered her family $200 to stay at a hotel for a weekend last September while crews corrected the lead violations, Medley said. That was not sufficient to provide her and her nine kids with hotel accommodations, she said.

After Hidais failed to communicate with the city about a potential remediation plan and timeline, the city moved in April to sue two companies owned by Hidais in Onondaga County Supreme Court — 513 Pond Realty Corp. and 1022-28 N. State Realty Corp. — for failure to comply with property codes. The suit sought for HIdais to remediate the lead violations in the house and pay an approximately $400,000 fine for lack of compliance. 

Director of Code Enforcement Ryan Shiel said repairs on the apartment have started, but the city does not know when they will be completed. Hidais has also not paid the fine imposed by the court, Shiel added. Hidais had to comply with the court order by Oct. 14.

The out-of-town landlord has eluded Medley, city officials and the court system. He did not show up to the initial court hearing, which meant the city won the case by default. Medley said she has never personally met Hidais, who bought the apartment from her previous landlord. Hidais has not replied to multiple requests for comment. 

Darlene Medley, at center, with her children at their new house on West Colvin Street Mike Greenlar | Central Current.

Medley’s former home is one of hundreds in the city that could pose a lead poisoning hazard to children. There are 1,231 code violations related to decaying lead paint spread across city properties, department of code enforcement records show.

“Everybody’s coming out, doing all these inspections, but the landlord is not being held accountable,” Medley said.

Medley said she was not referred to Catholic Charities for relocation assistance immediately after her house was deemed unfit by code enforcement.

It took the CPS caseworker’s July call to connect Medley with a city official who helps families get relocation assistance.

City officials typically refer families to Catholic Charities within days of their home being deemed unfit for human habitation, Collins said. 

“Some way, somehow, somebody did not put some paperwork in somewhere along the lines,” Medley said. “No one is communicating anything to each other.”

Medley said she sympathizes with city officials responsible for relocation, noting they have a difficult job.

“There are a lot of slumlords in this city,” Medley said. “(They have) a difficult job because there are very few options available to help people relocate.”

Medley and the house

During a sunny August day, Darlene Medley and her 18-year-old son Obveious Medley-Johnson shared a laugh at what will be their temporary home in the Southside of Syracuse. They had just spent the previous night painting baseboards, only to find the paint had faded by the next morning.

Medley and her family fixed up the house to build a “lead shelter” for families who need a place to stay after their code enforcement deems their home unfit for human habitation.

“We came back this morning and I kept scratching my head like, ‘I know we painted over here. Or am I bugging?,’” Medley said.

Darlene Medley with her 7-year-old twin sons, Rashad and Devon. They look out an upstairs bay window. Mike Greenlar | Central Current.

They later learned the paint from a local paint recycling store had expired.

“It’s just the kind of thing you figure out on your own,” she said. “We wasted a day and a half, but it’s okay. It has been fun. I’ve been bonding with my kids more.”

In the span of slightly more than a month they cleaned up an unfinished basement, repainted several rooms in the house, and got the power back up. They have lived there for close to two months now. 

Cleo Williams donated the house to Medley.

Williams’ late mother Corrine owned the home. Corrine was a member of the Syracuse Citywide Council of Low Income Housing Residents until she died in 2021. Williams said he was eager to help Medley once he heard her pitch for a lead shelter.

“I know that if she sets her mind and heart to it, she will do it,” Williams said.

Now, Medley and her children spend their Sundays on the porch, listening to music. Her younger children run around the house. They play freely and go shot for shot in a basketball video game on their Playstation. They know this house won’t be their last stop. But they look forward to helping other families in similar situations.

“The one thing I want to do is to create protection for us, the tenants,” Medley said.

Securing reliable and safe housing is going to fall in tenants’ hands, she added.

“The only way we are going to overcome these problems,” Medley said, “is that we have to take over and do it ourselves.”

Darlene Medley’s sons Telon, 14, and Rashad, 7, play a video game in their living room. Mike Greenlar | Central Current.

read more of Central Current’s coverage

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...