Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition Reaffirms Commitment to Collaborative Solutions to Address Cleveland’s Lead Crisis

Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition

Contacts:
Nancy Lesic, nlesic@lesiccamper.com
Hazel Remesch, hremesch@enterprisecommunity.org

Cleveland – Oct. 14, 2024 – The Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition (“the Coalition”) is unified in our commitment to addressing Cleveland’s lead crisis through collaboration, innovation, and practical solutions that are both achieveable and aligned with the goals of the City of Cleveland, our funders and the community.

Our work is driven by an urgent need to safeguard the health and future of Cleveland’s children and families. Every day, we remain focused on this mission because we understand that Cleveland’s future depends on protecting our most vulnerable residents from the irreversible harm of lead poisoning. This is not just about compliance—it’s about ensuring that our city’s children can grow, thrive, and reach their full potential in a safe, lead-free environment.

Five years ago, Cleveland leaders came together to form a public/private partnership to address one of Cleveland’s most intractable problems, the high rate of lead poisoning among Cleveland’s children. The Coalition, now with over 500 individual and organizational members, has worked tirelessly to reduce lead exposure caused by Cleveland’s aging housing stock, 90% of which was built prior to 1978 when lead paint was banned in the United States.

In 2019, we worked together to develop a plan that would support the city’s Lead Safe Ordinance. This collaborative, data-driven approach has been a cornerstone of the Coalition and its programs, intentionally focused on balancing ambition and practicality. The initial rollout of the program faced significant challenges, including, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, workforce development obstacles and issues related to enforcement, which delayed progress.

Despite these challenges, the Coalition has supported the City of Cleveland’s issuance of lead-safe certifications covering more than 30,000 housing units. The Coalition has continued to work closely with the City of Cleveland to support policies that increase the number of lead-safe homes including supporting initiatives like Residents First and advocating against statewide measures like HB 280, which would penalize communities like Cleveland that are proactively implementing lead-safe laws.

Last week, the Cleveland Department of Public Health released a data brief on lead poisoning rates in Cleveland over the past five years. The initial community response to compliance with the city’s lead-safe ordinance was encouraging – it caused thousands of rental units to be declared lead-safe. However, recent news is not as positive as we would have hoped.

While we appreciate the insights provided in the City’s recent data brief, it is important to recognize that it will take years to fully assess the impact of the Lead Safe Cleveland approach. It is important to note that Cleveland’s law was passed in 2019 but not implemented until 2021. Therefore, the data only reflects progress from 2021 to 2023—not a full five-year period. Given the lack of robust enforcement during this time, it is far too early to determine the long-term success of the program.

The Coalition believes a two-pronged approach is essential to effectively tackle lead poisoning. Any legislation that seeks to make homes safe from lead poisoning must be rigorously enforced and supported by adequate funding to meet its objectives, avoiding the pitfalls of an unfunded mandate.
Cleveland’s model was built from learnings and best practices from the lead safe certification program and implementation in Rochester, New York. Yet, it took Rochester more than 10 years to achieve a reduction in lead poisoning rates. The lead safe approach is our best path to reducing lead poisoning at scale, but meaningful progress will require time, continued collaboration, and sustained effort from all stakeholders.
In its relentless pursuit of progress, the Coalition has continued to adapt and identify key program enhancements to further safeguard children and families from the dangers of lead exposure, including:

  • Increased financial incentives for both lead-safe and lead-free certificates
  • Changed to a $20,000 per unit grant average, across the program, to address properties that require more extensive repair to comply with the lead-safe law
  • Expanded eligibility criteria to include higher income levels for grant qualification
  • Widened the scope of eligible lead safe repairs
  • Simplified applications
  • Onboarded new administrators to enhance grant capacity, to expedite and facilitate the distribution of lead safe home repair grants; additional non-profit organizations, includes Famicos Foundation, Fairfax Development Corporation, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, and Starting Point.

We are fully committed to continually refining our approach to ensure our efforts are not only sustainable and financially viable but also meet the urgent need to protect Cleveland’s children from the devastating effects of lead poisoning. With alarming reports of children still being exposed to dangerously high levels of lead, we must act swiftly. As we move forward, we must push for bold, ambitious solutions that are both practical and capable of safeguarding our most vulnerable residents without delay.

Urban areas like Cleveland have inherited massive lead problems that require innovative solutions and significant investment with limited national experience or best practices to draw from. Making any city’s housing stock lead-safe is an incredibly difficult task. Cleveland is one of the few cities bold enough to tackle this challenge with a coordinated response across multiple sectors. If this was easy, it would have been done decades ago. While we are not yet where we hoped to be, we are making significant progress in protecting our children from the irreversible harm of lead exposure, and we remain fully committed to seeing this through.

We invite everyone to join us at our next Policy Committee meeting, where we will discuss what’s working, what needs improvement, and what the next steps will be in this decades-long fight.

We affirm our commitment to creating a lead-safe Cleveland, where every child can grow, prosper, and fulfil their maximum potential.

Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition Executive Committee

Mitchell Balk
President, Mt. Sinai Health Foundation

Ayonna Blue Donald
Vice President and Ohio Market Leader, Enterprise Community Partners

Marcia Egbert
Program Director, The George Gund Foundation

Dr. Rob Fischer
Co-Director, Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development, CWRU

Vickie Johnson
Chief Community Officer, Cleveland Clinic

Kim Foreman
Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Health Watch

Sharon Sobol Jordan
President and CEO, United Way of Greater Cleveland

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