Enforce Lead Safe Certificate Law

Here's what's in the News

• DECEMBER 29, 2023. The Daily (CWRU) Mandel School’s Robert Fischer discusses Cleveland’s lead safe ordinance. "Progress has been slow three years after Cleveland’s lead safe ordinance was passed. What will it take to move the needle?  To bridge this gap, lead safe advocates are offering incentives such as low-interest loans and grants. But at the moment, few landlords are taking advantage of them, and progress on the lead safety initiative has been slow."

• December 18, 2023. Signal Cleveland. Cleveland’s lead safe application rate continues to drop. "The Lead Safe Auditor’s December report to the Lead Safe Advisory Board stated that applications for lead safe certification are down for the fifth quarter in a row, meaning application numbers have been declining for over a year. From July through September, application numbers came in at 355. To achieve full compliance by 2028, application rates would need to increase to about 2,600 applications per quarter. The auditor’s report also stated that 627 properties have renewed their certifications this year while 467 certificates have expired. The report said the trend suggests “ambivalence” from owners when it comes to maintaining compliance. A new enforcement system. Cleveland’s Department of Building and Housing Director Sally Martin O’Toole said the Residents First legislation, if passed by Cleveland City Council, will make it easier to enforce compliance with the lead safe ordinance. O’Toole said the city has begun fining landlords who don’t comply with the lead safe law. She said the city has issued 150 misdemeanor tickets and is hiring two prosecutors to focus on lead safe enforcement."

• NOVEMBER 29, 2023. The Land. There’s been little progress three years after Cleveland’s lead safe ordinance was passed. What will it take to move the needle?  "One of the biggest objections landlords have to Cleveland’s lead safe ordinance is that it is too expensive, according to Rob Fischer. Fischer, an associate professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, is involved in both auditing the city of Cleveland’s progress on lead safety and publishing research about it. To bridge this gap, lead safe advocates are offering incentives such as low-interest loans and grants — but right now, few landlords are taking advantage of them, and progress on the lead safety initiative has been slow." 

• CLASH responds to PD editorial.  Nov. 02, 2023, Cleveland.com. When it comes to making Cleveland lead-safe, our children can’t wait. "Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) would like to thank The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com editorial board for calling for radical action to save Cleveland’s Lead Safe Certificate Program (”Cleveland’s faltering lead-safe effort needs a recharge - and radical rethinking,” Nov. 1). CLASH has argued for four years that enforcement is the pathway to voluntary compliance."

• Nov. 01, 2023. Editorial Board, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.  Cleveland’s faltering lead-safe effort needs a recharge - and radical rethinking: editorial. "Thousands of lead-poisoned Cleveland children identified over many years of testing were a key impetus to lead-abatement reforms that raised more than $100 million for a public-private fund managed by the nonprofit Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition and an ambitious goal set in 2019: to make all Cleveland rentals lead-safe by 2028. But with that effort stalling amid landlord complaints about lack of city enforcement, bureaucratic hurdles, frustrating delays and the use of private compliance inspectors who sometimes seem more interested in selling their own services, cleveland.com’s Courtney Astolfi reports dire warnings from program assessors that it will fall far short of its 2028 goal unless radical fixes are made.

• Oct. 28, 2023.  Cleveland.com. ‘Alarm bells’: Progress slipping on Cleveland’s lead-safe law as landlords fail to comply. "Only a fraction of Cleveland landlords are complying with the city’s lead-safety law, and that number is slipping, prompting concern from local officials who worry the trend, if not stopped, could jeopardize Cleveland’s landmark effort to curb childhood lead poisoning. 'Alarm bells,' 'exact wrong direction,' and 'painting ourselves deeply into a corner,' were a few of the phrases uttered during last month’s Lead Safe Advisory Board meeting by Rob Fischer, a Case Western Reserve University researcher who is the lead-safe program’s independent evaluator."

• Oct 27, 2023. Cleveland lead-safe initiative struggling in 2023 as city leaders pledge improvements "The City of Cleveland recognized National Lead Poisoning Prevent Week with a series of events and a commitment to make improvements, as it admits its own lead safe initiative faces a struggle in 2023. Ward 12 Cleveland Councilwoman and Lead Advisory Board member Rebecca Maurer told city leaders that while the city-lead initiative has seen some results, she believes the program is starting to lose some momentum. 'I’m going to be honest. I think our progress is starting to wane when it comes to preventing lead poisoning,' Maurer said. 'Enrollments in the lead safe certificate program have decreased for the last three quarters and are continuing to trend downwards.' Maurer said the city was able to collect more than $100 million dollars to address the issue of lead poisoning in Cleveland but said less than 1% of those funds have been distributed over the course of the first 18 months of implementing Cleveland's lead law requiring all city rental units be inspected and receive a lead-safe certification. 'Are we getting money out the door and into the hands of property owners to truly make Cleveland lead safe? The Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition core incentive program pays landlords $750 to make their homes lead-safe,' Maurer said. 'Our loan and grant programs are also struggling. The coalition's goal for this year was over 1,000 loans and grants, but we only made it to 200.' ”

• Oct 02, 2023. WEWS. CLE Lead Safe compliance slowing according to Case Western study "Erika Jarvis of Cleveland, who was lead poisoned at the age of four, reacted to the latest Case Western Reserve University report showing the city lead safe program may be stalling. The report shows lead safe applications among Cleveland landlords declined 24% in the second quarter of 2023 to just 490, a trend showing applications down 1000 per quarter since 2022. The study showed application denials are up 53% in the last quarter of 2023 and lead safe renewal by landlords after two years is just 20 to 30%. Jarvis told News 5 she believes the Cleveland Lead Safe Coalition needs to do more to reach out to non-compliant rental property owners in various ways."

• September 2023. Here are the findings from Cleveland's Lead Safe Auditor. 

  1. • Quarterly volume of new lead safe applications decreased last three quarters.

     • Properties facing a lead safe renewal are not complying.

     • Application denials have dramatically increased.

     • Compliance comparable to peer cities, but insufficient to reach goals in timely way. 

• Sep 25, 2023. Axios Cleveland. Cleveland is taking negligent property owners to court to combat lead poisoning. "The city of Cleveland last week announced charges against 50 property owners who have failed to comply with lead-hazard control orders." 

  1. • This looks like enforcement of the Cleveland Lead Safe Certificate Law but actually it is enforcement of Health Department Lead Hazard Control Ordinances. For an explainer see here.

• Sep 18, 2023. City Hall Press Release. Residents First housing reform agenda aims to protect Clevelanders. "Robust new legislation outlining Mayor Bibb’s housing reform agenda with a package of ordinance overhauls aimed at protecting renters, dealing with vacant properties and revamping housing enforcement efforts will be introduced at tonight’s Cleveland City Council meeting.  [  ] Code enforcement changes outlined in Residents First establish new legal authority for inspectors to issue civil tickets for nuisances. This new code enforcement tool allows for the issuance of a $200 fine per infraction for violations including garbage disposal, lead-safe requirements, pest infestation, exterior maintenance, graffiti removal, sanitation and other areas covered by the city’s building and housing, zoning, fire and health codes."

• JUNE 29, 2023. TheLand. 1400 miles, on foot. How Cleveland surveyed 162,000 properties in 6 months. "The StoryMap uses categories such as vacant lots, dumping, lead hazards, and out-of-state ownership to focus on the larger issues in the public consciousness and at city hall. 'We believe this will allow us to identify areas across the city that are most in need and then work from there,' said Ward 10’s Councilman Anthony Hairston at a June 16 press conference.The survey will help pinpoint specific data that will ultimately lead to a better city,' he added, alluding to hot-button Cleveland issues like lead paint abatement and vacancy demolitions." More here.

• Feb. 15, 2023. cleveland.com. Cleveland has tried the ‘carrot’ approach to get landlords to deal with lead; now it’s time for ‘the stick’: Editorial. "Some members of Cleveland City Council want a program that helps seniors and disabled homeowners repair their houses expanded. The last two years, the city and the Lead Safe Coalition have used the 'carrot' approach to encourage, cajole and provide financial assistance to landlords to get lead at their properties cleaned up and inspected for lead safe certification. The time has arrived to use “the stick.”

• Jan. 30, 2023. Cleveland.com. Four out of five rentals have yet to comply as Cleveland’s lead-safe law enters the next chapter. "Based on the numbers available, full compliance appears to be years, if not a decade or more, away, unless the pace of certifications picks up. Over the first three-quarters of 2022, the city received an average of 1,000 applications every three months. 'To reach a 7‐year goal of compliance (by 2028), the volume of…applications would need to reach approximately 2,500,' the auditor’s September report states." If you've been following the issue of enforcement, you may recall that a Mayoral effort to move ARPA funds to the Law Department for enforcement was challenged by LSCC supporters in Council. 

• October 25, 2022. Cleveland.com. Compromise saves Cleveland’s $17 million lead safety law: Stimulus Watch. The headline is misleading, City Council reprogrammed some funds to the City Law Department to begin enforcement of years-old violations on houses which have already poisoned children. A step in the right direction after a decade of neglect.

• October 28, 2022. Ideastream. Cleveland inspectors will survey 170,000 properties for lead contamination. Again the headline is confusing. Actually Building and Housing is trying to find what rental properties are not on the register and...while they are on the sidewalk, looking at the unregistered properties, they are checking for exterior violations. No testing, no fines, no naming and shaming. Another step in the right direction.

• May 24, 2021 WEWS. 'Enforcement is near' for many landlords as part of Cleveland's lead poisoning prevention law. "Cleveland city leaders warned Monday that enforcement may soon be coming to certain landlords who have not had their properties certified as part of the landmark lead poisoning prevention ordinance passed by City Council in July 2019. The so-called Lead Safe Cleveland ordinance requires all landlords in the city to have their rental properties certified as lead-safe by 2023."

Here are some recommendations to improve enforcement of the Lead Safe Certificate Program

• Housing Court. Impose no re-rent orders on properties where landlords are evicting tenants, but flouting the duty to certify their properties are lead safe.

• Departments of Building and Housing, Public Health, and Law Departments to create a protocol for bringing non compliant owners to Court.

• Develop civil receivership procedures for nuisance properties with lead violations in order to expedite rehabilitation or demolition. 

• Departments of Building and Housing, Public Health, Law, and the Housing Court should set up a system for handling tenant complaints related to lead poisoning. 

• Provide emergency relocation assistance for tenants displaced by enforcement actions.