Years after declaring an all-out effort to decrease childhood lead poisoning, Cleveland is still struggling to make good on its goal.
The number of rental units with lead safe certificates has slipped. Millions raised to tackle the problem remain unspent. And though Mayor Justin Bibb has said his abrupt shift late last year in the city’s lead program was necessary, City Council remains skeptical.
The city’s lead safe legislation, passed in 2019, required landlords whose properties were built before 1978 – when lead paint was outlawed for use in homes – to get a certification proving the unit was safe from lead. Most of Cleveland’s housing stock was built prior to 1978.
Rates of childhood lead poisoning have stayed relatively stagnant since 2019, according to data shared by health officials at a council health committee meeting Monday. The latest data found 1,369 Cleveland children had an elevated blood lead level in 2024.
Leaders within the mayor’s administration as well as a couple of City Council members said Monday that it was time to discuss making changes to the 2019 lead safe law, though no specific legal changes were presented.
“We’re at this critical moment for this program,” said Council Member Rebecca Maurer. She added that the imminent challenge is to consider what legislative amendments or administrative changes are necessary.
“Because until we get lead poisoning down, nothing is far enough.”
The Lead Safe Advisory Board, made up of council-appointed community members, suggested increasing opportunities for the group to provide insight and oversight to the City Council and in policy development.
Units in compliance with lead safe law are down
Numbers the city presented Monday showed the total number of rentals with the required lead safe certification have dropped since 2023.
As of late April, about 24,700 rental units in the City of Cleveland are certified, the city’s director of building and housing, Sally Martin O’Toole, said Monday.
That’s down from about 31,000 in December 2023. The drop is at least in part due to expiring certifications, which must be renewed every two years. About 4,500 property owners who initially received a lead safe certificate let it expire.
“We did have a large number of expirations where those folks haven’t come back to the table,” Maurer said.
Maurer said the city’s new lead safe auditor, whose contract is currently being finalized, could investigate why many property owners let their lead safe status lapse.
“They were an early adopter, and then didn’t come back for a second round. Why not?”
The 24,700 units that are currently lead safe certified represent somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of rental properties in the city, estimated Dr. David Margolius, director of public health. Pre-1978 rental units were supposed to be lead safe certified by March 2023, according to the initial law.
Margolius said the city plans to increase enforcement in order to boost compliance rates. Martin O’Toole said the city will soon begin ticketing landlords who have signed up for the city’s rental registry but have not attempted to get a lead safe certification. That number is in the thousands, she added.
Ticketing landlords is a relatively new method, approved after a code change in February 2024, that will take less staff time and resources than a criminal prosecution.
Several council members encouraged the push to beef up enforcement.
“I want to double down on sending a clear message to these renters that they have rights,” said council president Blaine Griffin. “And to these landlords, that if you are not complying, we are not playing anymore.”
Dollars – public and private – moving too slowly out the door, council members say
Some council members said they had concerns about the slow distribution of at least three pots of money meant to remediate lead-contaminated housing.
That included the Cleveland Lead Safe Coalition, a group of local nonprofit, government and business partners. The coalition has spent approximately $20 million since it began operating in 2020, of which about $8 million went directly to property owners for lead remediation – a small fraction of the $92 million the coalition has in commitments from private and public donors.
But Ayonna Blue Donald, a member of the coalition’s executive committee, told council members the group has only received about $33 million so far.
And Donald said a number of factors make it difficult to get the money to landlords. For one, many applicants the coalition wants to fund have remediation needs that are more expensive than the amount set for the grants.
She said that’s why the coalition recently eliminated the cap on remediation grants.
“We had scores of properties on hold because the grant amount was way higher than what we … were actually approved to spend,” Donald said. “For instance, if properties were coming back at $50,000, $60,000 of needing repairs, and the grant cap was $12,000, we put those on hold.”
Meanwhile, three federal grants the city received to address lead also each have more than $1 million left to be spent – despite having 2025 expiration dates. That includes a $9.7 million grant to address lead hazards in the Glenville neighborhood, which expires May 30. Staff said $7.6 million of the grant remains.
Staffing within the community development department has been a challenge, said Assistant Community Development Director Tony Scott.
Scott said the city asked the department of Housing and Urban Development for an extension of the grants – but has yet to receive approval.
“If they tell us we can’t extend it, then we’ll have to deal with that,” Scott said.
Maurer expressed frustration with both the Cleveland Lead Safe Coalition and the city’s Community Development department for the slow spending.
“That we’ve spent only $2 million of a $9.7 million allocation is not OK for me, and it’s not OK with any of us here,” Maurer said. “And it’s also not the only time we’ve struggled to spend money.”
Council members frustrated over mayoral lead screening decision
Mayor Justin Bibb’s executive order last October ratcheted up the level of lead screening landlords need.
Griffin, the council president, said that the move wasn’t communicated to council or community partners prior to the announcement. He added that the new lead assessment is likely to be more expensive and time-consuming than the former test, which was called a clearance exam.
“Why would we arbitrarily move there without having a robust conversation with the Lead Safe steering committee [or] council?” Griffin said. “…I just have a huge problem with arbitrarily doing something, especially when we went through a very democratic process in order to get to the clearance exam.”
But Margolius, who was appointed by Bibb, argued the decision was made because the less intensive lead test was putting children at risk.
“We knew from extensive reporting, through extensive data, through anecdotes, that property managers were using the clearance exam to cheat the test,” Margolius said. “It’s well-reported.”
He added that the executive order still follows the 2019 lead law, which said a landlord could submit the more-intensive or less-intensive examination to receive a lead safe certification. Since the change, more than 900 of the higher-level lead inspections were turned into the city, officials said.
