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City Loses Millions Of Dollars To Help Lead Paint Victims

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Right now, there are young children living in city houses tainted with lead paint facing serious health dangers.

Suzanne Collins reports the city has missed out on a chance to get millions of dollars to help them.

When he was two, Abraham Tarley had so much lead in his blood, it was five times the amount of the poison level.  Lead causes cognitive and behavioral problems in children.

"It was too high in his blood," said Augustine Tarley, Abraham's father.

Augustine Tarley, a Liberian refugee, bought the West Baltimore home from the city, having no idea his American dream would endanger the life of his only son.

"They tested the window here and test the wall and test back there," he said.  "Positive, lead was here and the porch out here was lead."

The city health department did replace the floor and paint over railings and sills.  More lead abatement was planned, but now millions of dollars from a federal grant is no longer available to Baltimore.  The city lost the money because HUD says it was mismanaged.

"Very sad.  I'm feeling bad because that's my son," Augustine Tarley said.

The mayor says she's disappointed but will try to come up with other funds.

"That's the most important thing to me, that we make sure the services are provided without interruption and we'll get to the bottom of why the program fell out of good standing with the federal government and make sure we don't make those mistakes again," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Why didn't the health department make corrections before losing the grant entirely?  There were warnings.  HUD says it tried to help the city last summer comply with the administrative requirements of this grant but it says the city couldn't even accomplish those short-term goals.

Augustine Tarley says lead paint painted over to make it safe has peeled back again and he worries for his children.

The program is being shifted by the mayor to the housing department but 13 workers at the city health department will lose their jobs.

The City Council will hold a hearing in the next several weeks to find out more about why the health department lost the grant.

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