CLEVELAND — 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.
“For me, bombard social media, you have the money, there should be commercials, there should be things on the radio, hell we should see council talking about it,” Jarvis said. "So take a step back, figure out what’s working and not working and revamp, we have children who are being poisoned every single day and that’s just unacceptable.”
Yvonka Hall, Executive Director of Cleveland Lead Advocates or CLASH, told News 5 that quicker processing of applications and greater education for landlords is needed to get more of them involved in making their rental units lead-compliant.
"Why is there such a backlog to complete the paperwork, if you don’t have as much as you had a couple of years ago, then why is it taking so long to process," Hall said. “You need to make sure that they know what the process is, this is how you fill out the application, and you need to make sure that there are people there answering the phones, I’ve called the line a number of times and we got the runaround.”
Robert Fischer, Case Western Associate Professor with the Mandel School of Social Sciences told News 5 Cleveland is on par with other cities like Detroit and Rochester in trying to work toward lead safe compliance, but said the city would have to increase its quarter application by four times the current level to reach 100% compliance by its current goal of 2028. Much of the study information was explained during a Sept. 28 presentation.
“Overall we have seen about 13% of properties have complied, which is about 28% of all the rental units in the City of Cleveland,” Fischer said. “We’ve also got to see more aggressive compliance tactics for those who are not in line with the ordinance. And that’s through ticketing and prosecution.”
Fischer said lead-safe progress can be tracked using theLead Safe Cleveland Coalition Dashboard.
Michael Henderson, Senior Research Associate with the Mandel School of Social Sciences told News 5 that families in some of Cleveland's poorest neighborhoods are still being disproportionately plagued by childhood lead poisoning.
“Once you get poisoned by lead as a child it sticks with you for your whole life, so there is a lack of education for sure and awareness,” Henderson said. “You just kind of see the same patterns being repeated over and over again and they are disproportionately affecting African American families.”
The City of Cleveland responded to News 5 pointing out the city prosecuted 50 landlords who failed to become lead safe compliant with 75 misdemeanor charges just two weeks ago and said more will be charged in the coming months.
The City of Cleveland also issued the following statement:
Residents will a see change in the way we can gain compliance with lead-safe: to rent in good standing will require a lead-safe certificate; we can issue civil tickets for non-compliance; and by better oversight, inspections, and a POS for residential vacant buildings, we will be able to ensure that those units are brought in to lead safe condition before re-occupancy.
We plan to work with the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, City Council, and other stakeholders to take a hard look at the existing Lead Safe legislation and make recommendations for changes that we think will better drive compliance. Hopefully, in the coming year, we will see those changes proposed and codified.
We are on a similar, if not better, trajectory than other cities like Rochester and Providence that passed legislation years ago. Because our goal is to reach higher compliance in a shorter period of time than those other cities, we are surely falling short of that goal, yet on track to as well or better than those peer cities. This is a marathon and not a sprint. We have a lot of properties that have decades of deferred maintenance and it is going to take time and significant resources to get them in compliance.
We will continue to build momentum in our prosecution efforts, both with lead-safe compliance and for those with Lead Hazard Control Orders to drive compliance. There are significant funds available for property owners to come into compliance and prosecution will serve as an incentive to access those funds and make repairs.
Still, after seeing the study results, Erika Jarvis is hoping the city will take further steps with direct education and outreach to Cleveland landlords and parents.
”It’s really sad it just shows how inefficient this process is," Jarvis said. "We cannot continue to wait and waste years on an ineffective processes.”
News 5 is committed in following through on the battle to reduce childhood lead poisoning in Northeast Ohio.
