Hundreds were evacuated in Durham. Why HUD still doesn’t require carbon monoxide detectors
Public housing units across the country are still not required by the federal government to have carbon monoxide detectors, more than a year after two people died in South Carolina and after recent evacuations of hundreds of families from a Durham public housing complex.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, in testimony before a House subcommittee this week, said his department is working with congressional lawmakers to pass a law requiring the detectors. In the meantime, the agency has tried to get housing authorities to act in other ways.
“We have communicated with all the public housing and assisted housing projects. We’ve made it clear to them that we expect carbon monoxide detectors to be in place and we expect them to be working,” Carson told the House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation and housing.
During HUD inspections this year, inspectors noted whether or not there are carbon monoxide detectors in each unit, said Carl Newman, the general counsel of the Durham Housing Authority. Previously, he said, the inspectors did not note if the detectors were present.
HUD sent a notice effective April 1, 2019, that inspections include a check for carbon monoxide detectors.
Newman said all units controlled by the Durham Housing Authority have carbon monoxide detectors as required by North Carolina state law. The state law requires landlords to “provide a minimum of one operable carbon monoxide detector per rental unit per level.”
Rep. David E. Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat whose current district includes parts of Durham County, is the chairman of the subcommittee.
Hundreds of families evacuated
Hundreds of residents at the McDougald Terrace public housing complex in Durham were evacuated in January due to health and safety concerns, including leaking gas stoves that officials said dated to the complex’s opening in the 1950s. The stoves are being replaced with electric stoves, but many residents continue to live in hotels.
Newman said the housing authority hopes to have all residents returned to their homes by the end of the first week of April. Of the 324 families that live at McDougald Terrace, about 120 have either returned, transferred to different housing or never left their home in the first place, Newman said.
More families are returning every day, he said.
Price pushed Carson on why his agency has yet to institute a rule regarding the inspections.
“We’re working with legislators to actually put a law in place,” Carson said, “because that can be done a lot faster than the rule-making process.”
In September the House passed a bill requiring carbon monoxide alarms or detectors in certain federally assisted housing, which Price noted during the hearing. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, and Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, have introduced a similar bill in the Senate, but it has not been passed. Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, introduced a similar bill in 2019.
Two residents at a Columbia, South Carolina, public housing complex were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in 2019.
Federal emergency aid being sought
The Durham Housing Authority plans to request reimbursement from HUD’s emergency capital fund for the $2.8 million cost, as of Thursday, associated with removing residents, providing temporary housing and making the repairs needed at McDougald Terrance.
The Greensboro Office of Public Housing received an application from the authority on Tuesday, according to HUD. The applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis and the Capital Fund Emergency/Natural Disaster was appropriated $20 million in this fiscal year. There is no timetable on when a grant could be made.
HUD said the cost of the new stoves, however, does not meet its definition of an emergency expenditure, as previously reported by The Herald-Sun.
“We’ve been working very closely with them and want to make sure they are taken care of,” Carson told Price when asked about the issues in Durham.
Price, who complimented the work of the HUD field office in Greensboro, said he is confident that Durham will receive some money from its request.
“Yes. There’s some devil in the details, but the answer is yes,” Price said.
The administration’s 2021 budget request includes $425 million for “healthy homes,” which includes lead remediation and carbon monoxide detectors. The agency’s overall budget request is $47.9 billion — less than the $56.5 billion that was enacted in the 2020 budget, though Congress is not expected to go along with those cuts.
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This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
