Is it in the water? Are children getting bits of paint in their mouths? Disgraceful. This needs to be fixed at once. These kids' futures are in jeopardy.

And the number of kids affected declined over the 5 years that number of cases, 820, is spread over. The first lie in the story is the title--there aren't 820 kids in public housing in NY that have currently tested positive to elevated lead levels; for all we know, there are zero (but that's unlikely). Crucial to the story is also what's not said: That the lead levels in the kids' blood were the result of living in the housing complex. It's an "association" that we assume is causal, but there's no evidence of causality apart from the association. So the first thing, prior to fixing anything, is to understand the source of the lead.

Could be paint, but they stopped putting lead in house paint over 40 years ago, so it's old paint that should have been covered over several times by now. But things happen, I guess, to expose old paint.

Some kinds of drywall contain or contained lead.

Could be the water.

Could be ceramics that are either old, not intended to be used with food, or are brought in from other countries.

Could be exposure to some sorts of old or foreign toys, or to something as simple as open electronics. Tin-lead solder is still standard. Play with these things then put your fingers in your mouth or eat food with your hands and you never actually have to put the source of the lead in your mouth.

In a number of urban locations around the country the soil that the kids play in has been found to be tainted with lead. That might be a playground associated with a housing complex, or day care, or just the dirt next to the sidewalk. Kids are lower to the ground and tend to play on the ground.

Heck, it's been a couple of decades since I read about this, but some "folk remedies" from other countries were tested and found to have high levels of lead.

most of them were from China, and I've read that toys from China can have lead, since there are no controls there over that.

The problem with dog toys containing dangerous substances is that dogs chew on their toys.

I also quit buying chicken jerky, because it was made in China, and it had been discovered to have toxic substances (maybe lead, but I forget what). So I make my dogs chicken jerky. It costs less and is better, anyway.

It's possible there was lead in the water. Think about Flint.