Laurence and Angeleta Thornton thought when they purchased a Baltimore row house from the federal government in 2000, they had found a safe place to raise their children.
They were wrong.
The Thorntons? young son, Tysen, now 4, contracted lead paint poisoning last year and was forced to move in with his grandmother until the lead paint was removed from the family?s home on the 3900 block of Shannon Drive.
“We had no idea this house had lead paint in it. That?s what was so shocking to me,” said Laurence Thornton, 31, who got the northeast Baltimore house from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
James Kelly, Baltimore Field Office director for HUD, said federal officials always disclose the risk of lead paint.
“The last thing anyone buying a HUD home should think is it?s up to quality standards,” Kelly said.
It?s stories like the Thorntons? that have lawmakers increasing efforts to eradicate lead paint poisoning from Maryland homes.
U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., on Monday announced that he planned to introduce legislation that would offer tax credits for the removal of lead paint in homes across America.
“These children are victims of lead paint,” Ruppersberger said of the Thorntons? son, at a news conference.
Ruppersberger?s bill, called the Home Lead Safety Tax Credit Act of 2007, would provide:
» Up to a $3,000 tax credit for getting rid of lead paint and replacing painted surfaces, windows or fixtures contaminated with lead paint.
» Up to a $1,000 tax credit for specialized cleaning, temporary containment, monitoring and resident education about lead paint contamination.
Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein on Monday also posted on the city?s Web site all properties with current lead hazard violations that have remained unfixed for more than 60 days.
Since 1995, the number of children with elevated blood lead levels has fallen from 10,258 to 843 in 2006 in Baltimore ? a decrease of 92 percent, according to the city?s Health Department.
But poisonings like Tysen?s still outrage Marylanders who have wrestled with lead paint poisoning for years.
“Any child poisoned by lead is unacceptable,” said Shari Wilson, Maryland?s secretary of the environment.
