Hearing: New Haven Testifies On Its Mold Crisis

Bond’s presentation, part of an informational hearing the committee had called to gather testimony on the intersection of housing, mold outbreaks and asthma, was convened less than two months after In These Times published my year-long investigation, ​“As Corporations Spread, a Mold Epidemic Takes Root,” about how negligent corporate landlords are harming thousands of tenants’ respiratory health by failing to remediate mold problems in their homes. The piece included the vast majority of figures Bond cited in her testimony.

In These Times’ investigation largely followed 14 residents of Sunset Ridge Apartments — a 312-unit, corporately-owned apartment complex in New Haven — who developed respiratory problems like asthma or severe allergies thanks to untreated mold, but received little to no help from either their landlord or the city government. Across the nation, my piece found, this level of mismanagement and government inaction is par for the course. 

But New Haven’s hearing represented new ground for community advocates to call for accountability on behalf of tenants whose lives and health have been upended by the toxic effects of mold, which, as In These Times’ investigation demonstrated, has become an epidemic as severe as lead paint once was.

Near the end of the hearing, one such advocate, Caitlin Maloney, a community organizer with a New Haven legal aid organization, gingerly approached the large wooden table near the front of city council chambers to testify as a representative of more than 30 Sunset Ridge tenants affected by this issue. 

“Our group chat is just filled with residents documenting these issues [of mold] with flooding as well,” Maloney said. ​“Most of them would rather move out at this point than fight using the few resources they have left.”

But by far the most substantive, and damning, testimony came during a presentation by Liam Brennan, the recently-appointed executive director of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), which oversees housing code enforcement in New Haven and which largely confirmed the convoluted mold policies In These Times’ investigation first spotlighted, as multiple tenants reported their inability to get LCI to enforce legal requirements related to mold.

“One of the most perplexing things I found upon starting at LCI,” said Brennan, ​“was that we do not test for mold.” 

According to Brennan, not only does the agency not test for mold, but it will not explicitly identify mold as a matter of policy. That helps explain why LCI and the city resort to tortured and euphemistic language at times when discussing the city’s mold problem. For example, when In These Times reached out to LCI last fall to ask about their mold enforcement policies, city spokesman Lenny Speiller responded by using the phrase ​“when there is a substance that resembles mold” as opposed to simply ​“when there is mold.”

But as Brennan indicated, this failure is related to a larger problem: that clear mold standards seem to be few and far between at every level of government. 

At the federal level, the Healthy at Home Act, which would set clear ​“quality requirements” for mold in much of the nation’s housing, failed to pass when introduced in 2023 and is unlikely to advance under the Trump administration. It is the only legislation of its kind to have been proposed.

At the state level, as Brennan pointed out in his testimony, Connecticut has made explicit the fact that no such standards exist, based on an official guidance distributed by the Department of Public Health in January 2024. ​“There are no health-based standards for ​‘acceptable levels’ of mold in indoor environments,” the guidance reads, ​“because different types of mold vary in ability to produce allergic reactions or illness, and people vary in individual susceptibility/​resistance.”

At the local level, as In These Times’ investigation revealed, the word ​“mold” does not appear in New Haven’s housing code ordinance at all, and consequently, housing code violations for mold-related issues typically refer to a ​“black-like substance” rather than naming mold outright. Brennan testified that this system tends to result in landlords focusing on cosmetic fixes (much like those frequently utilized at Sunset Ridge) required to rid an apartment of the appearance of a black-like substance, rather than the root problems of the water damage or leak that is causing the mold — and tenants’ health problems. 

“We are an all-enforcement agency,” Brennan said. ​“We can enforce only if we have standards to work with. But we are not scientists. We can’t come up with the standards ourselves. Right now, we’re stuck because we do not have a way to evaluate it, and the state has not given us much guidance at all along those lines.”

But the lack of standards doesn’t mean that mold isn’t making thousands upon thousands of people sick, as Laura Chen, a pediatric pulmonologist at Yale New Haven Health, expressed in her testimony. ​“Each year, I continue to take care of children who have asthma attacks, require strong medications like oral steroids or even hospitalization,” she said. ​“Many of these families tell me they have mold lining their ceilings or in their bathrooms, or even worse, standing water from flooding that hasn’t been addressed in weeks.”

In his testimony, Brennan highlighted the fact that such a glaring lack of standards automatically puts LCI on the backfoot when bringing challenges in court against landlords, as hinging a case on the presence and effects of a ​“black-like substance” isn’t exactly sound legal strategy, especially when dealing with large corporate landlords with deep pockets for lawsuits. Yet even as LCI is currently stymied in dealing with mold in specific, Brennan, who took over the agency in August, has been working to push through a variety of more sweeping reforms that will eliminate much of the existing red tape that has prevented enforcement agencies from holding landlords accountable.

Over the course of nearly two hours, the hearing also illustrated the myriad ways bureaucratic processes can become obstacles to meaningful action on behalf of New Haven residents. As Bond explained in her presentation, while the city established the Healthy Homes Program to help provide funding to residents for expensive hazard abatement procedures, including mold, it has gone underutilized since only landlords, not tenants, can apply for the funds. When committee chair Alder Eli Sabin, who first called for the hearing, proposed utilizing local hospital records of patients who bring up poor housing conditions to identify properties LCI should inspect, Brennan had to break the news that LCI can only schedule inspections in a unit after speaking with the tenant living there. 

But the committee’s alders also began to chart a path forward. This month Sabin told In These Times the city was finalizing the establishment of a working group ​“where we can think through some of the legislative or policy fixes that are necessary.”

“There’s just a broad lack of accountability for landlords who aren’t keeping up with their properties, and it seems like mold specifically is something that we don’t have a good way of addressing right now,” Sabin said. ​“I think the next steps are going to be continuing these conversations, and then bring in some experts and talk to folks from around the country who have done a good job.”

Overall, what the hearing showcased is that the city is willing and able to identify the missing pieces of this puzzle. The primary question, then, is how urgently New Haven will go about putting it together for the countless tenants who desperately need a finished solution. 

Near the conclusion of the hearing, Cassandra Saxton, an attorney with New Haven Legal Assistance, approached the front of the room to give her testimony, which included reading two letters from clients whose respiratory health has crumbled due to untreated mold outbreaks. Their words rang out as a solemn reminder that every day spent in the process of looking into the issue, setting the necessary standards or establishing working groups is another day tenants across the city and state will keep finding it harder and harder to breathe.

“I’ve asked my landlord multiple times if there’s mold in the house,” one client’s letter recounted. ​“I’ve called and emailed asking him to check for mold but he never answers. I called LCI… but while those reports are pending, my landlord doesn’t answer. Instead, he sent me a notice to quit. My family is worried about my health. I’m also worried… Other people are also getting sick… It makes you scared to breathe.”