BUFFALO - Over the weekend, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against a group of individuals and companies in Buffalo for repeatedly violating county, city, state, and federal laws by illegally allowing lead paint-related hazards to proliferate in their rental properties.
The violations by the group, which has owned and managed more than 150 single- and two-family homes in predominantly low-income communities of color, has led to dozens of reported instances of childhood lead poisoning.
The rental housing operations addressed in the suit are controlled by Angel Elliot Dalfin, the lawsuit identifies six examples alleged mismanaged properties.
"It is as immoral as it is illegal that a landlord would knowingly expose families to lead poisoning, which disproportionately threatens the health and development of Black and brown children," said Attorney General James. "Our children deserve to live in safe and healthy homes, not dangerous and poisonous ones. This group of landlords and property managers put low-income Buffalo communities at extreme risk, and today we are holding them accountable. As Buffalo continues to have some of the highest rates of childhood lead poisoning in the country, my office will continue to hold bad actors responsible. Every family deserves to live in a home free of lead hazards, and I will work to ensure that happens."
The lawsuit, filed in Erie County Supreme Court, alleges that since 2013, the Erie County Department of Health has identified dozens of children with elevated blood lead levels (EBLLs) in 22 of the Dalfin properties. In addition, since 2013, at least 63 of these houses have been cited by county and city inspectors for housing code violations, either for conditions conducive to lead poisoning, which are prohibited by the Erie County Sanitary Code, or for chipping, peeling, or deteriorating paint, which is prohibited by both the county and city.
The landlords frequently allowed paint on their properties to deteriorate to the point of being a lead hazard instead of preventing deterioration of paint, as required by local and state building codes, and only addressed the lead hazard after a lead-poisoned child was discovered.
The group also consistently violated federal lead disclosure requirements by providing either no lead disclosure statement to tenants or false disclosures, which stated that the landowner had no reports of lead paint or lead paint hazards, when in fact there were multiple reports of lead paint and lead paint hazards regarding the residences.
