Only a fraction of Cleveland landlords have taken steps to prevent childhood lead poisoning. Local officials are grappling with how to reverse that trend.
Compliance with Cleveland's lead-safe law is headed in the "exact wrong direction," one official said, because few landlords are participating. Leaders at City Hall and the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition are trying to turn that trend around, but landlords say the program is flawed.
Just 13% of properties, representing some 28% of the city’s rental units, have obtained their initial lead-safe certifications that were required in 2021 and 2022. And now, the vast majority of those who complied in the first round are falling out of compliance by failing to re-up their certifications, according to data through June.. And even the fraction of landlords who showed initial willingness to comply largely aren’t doing so any longer, or they’re dragging their feet.
The certification process requires landlords to obtain an initial clearance exam from private inspection businesses, which could range between a few hundred dollars and $1,000. On the “stick” side is City Hall, which can prosecute landlords for failing to comply. Prosecutions are considered a resource- and time-intensive process, especially when applied to tens of thousands of property owners.Of 100,000 or so estimated rental homes in the city, about 28,000 had applied for certifications, as of June.
Maurer -- a lead activist-turned-councilwoman who’s now on the program’s advisory board -- has framed those figures as just a small slice of the available cash. One said she found the process “impossible to navigate and comply with.” Another called the program “half-baked.” Another shared her experience: “I take a lot of pride in providing nice living spaces for my tenants- but it is ridiculous to expect me to go in and deep clean an apartment while someone is living there and inspect their personal belongings in attempt to pass the lead test.”
And one landlord who has not participated – who said he’s been turned off by several of the issues listed above – boiled his lack of compliance down to lack of enforcement from the city. He pointed to the many thousands of Cleveland landlords like him who also aren’t complying. It’s unclear when those changes will happen; City Council hasn’t held hearings on the proposal, and, if they do eventually pass it, it would still take some time to hire staff and get the new system up and running.
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