The City of Cleveland will simplify the certification process for landlords and property owners who have to comply with lead-safe laws to prevent children from being poisoned in hazardous homes.
At Thursday’s Lead Safe Advisory Board meeting, officials from the Department of Building and Housing, the Department of Community Development and the Health Department presented new strategies to increase engagement and technical support for landlords when navigating the city’s application process for lead-safe compliance.
In 2019, Cleveland passed a series of laws that required landlords to certify their properties as lead safe. The goal was to combat high rates of lead poisoning among children and reach full compliance by 2028.
At the peak of the rollout, roughly 1,000 applications were submitted per quarter, according to a March 2024 Lead Safe Auditor report. But since 2022, fewer and fewer property owners have applied for certification. Applications have declined for six quarters in a row, with only 345 applications submitted between October and December 2023.
One of the new efforts includes seeking feedback from landlords and property owners who use city systems such as Accela, an online portal that tracks rental registrations, civil tickets for property violations and permit application information.
The city will use the input to make a guide that outlines documents, state laws and materials needed to meet the city’s requirements. The hope is to target mom-and-pop landlords who own one- to three-family rental units. Emily Collins, senior strategist of housing and lead initiatives, said this landlord group has the hardest time complying.
“It’s necessary for us to become much more effective,” Collins said. “Eventually this will become the document everyone can rely on.”
Lead safe renewals are also a problem
Rob Fischer, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University and independent auditor for the city’s Lead Safe Advisory Board, said approval rates for lead-safe applications remain high, but renewals for previously certified properties have declined to 19%. Experts cited in the auditor’s report noted landlords’ “ambivalence” to the lead safe law, which could jeopardize the city’s overall efforts to reduce childhood lead poisoning.
Fischer also said lead safe compliance trends among registered rentals in Cleveland are well ahead of those in peer cities such as Providence and Detroit, which passed similar ordinances. But Cleveland is below the level required to reach full compliance by 2028, he said.
“We’ve always had our eye on first-time applications,” Fischer said. “Now, we also have to consider those renewals and the motivations to not renew.”
A proactive approach to enforcement
Since the lead safe certification program launched in 2021, 611 applications have failed to meet compliance.
Sally Martin O’Toole, the city’s Director of Building and Housing, said common reasons for rejected applications include missing documents such as lab sheets, photos and licenses from lead-clearance inspections and failure to submit reports within 90 days of the exams.
The department is building up its staff, including hiring a House Bureau Manager of Code Enforcement, to assist small landlords with compliance. The aim is to ensure a more practical approach to address the challenges with these landlords rather than prosecuting them in housing court, which O’Toole said hasn’t been effective.
City continues to evaluate lead safe efforts
Hundreds of child lead poisoning cases are referred to the city each year, according to Dr. Dave Margolius, the city’s director of Public Health. Last summer, the city said it would renew its focus on lead safe efforts after a Signal Cleveland investigation found it was failing to enforce its laws and help families find support.
After that, the city began prosecuting landlords for the first time in recent years for failing to comply with its laws and passed new legislation that targets out-of-state landlords and property owners who skirt penalties.
The city is also continuing to try to prevent landlords from selling homes with lead hazards. One way the city is doing this is by filing an affidavit with Cuyahoga County. The affidavit will show up during a prospective buyer’s title search. As of March 2024, the city had filed 658 affidavits with the county on hazardous properties, Margolius said.
Suggested Reading
Cleveland prosecutes landlords who ignored lead hazards in homes
The City of Cleveland has begun prosecuting dozens of landlords for ignoring lead hazards that pose a risk of poisoning children.