The Weight of Lead — Part II: A Proactive Approach to Lead Poisoning in Toledo, Ohio
David Norris, Jillian Olinger, and Mary McKay
In Part I, we documented the threat lead poisoning poses to children, especially poor children of color. Lead poisoning’s effects on the developing brains and bodies of young children are permanent and severe, resulting in lost intellectual capacity, poor impulse control in school-age children, and lost income and productivity in their adult years, among other insults and injuries. Here, we share one community’s journey toward health equity for its most vulnerable citizens. We close by sounding the alarm about threats to many policies that are designed to improve the quality of our housing and by urging local communities to remain vigilant.
The Kirwan Institute works to create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have the opportunity to succeed by educating the public, building the capacity of allied social justice organizations, and investing in efforts that support equity and inclusion. In Toledo, Ohio, this meant partnering with advocates to develop a racial impact statement demonstrating the disparate impact of government’s failure to provide adequate protections against harm — in this case, lead poisoning due to deteriorating lead paint.
Case Study: Toledo, Ohio
The city of Toledo has taken a commonsense approach to addressing lead paint hazards. The city’s newly enacted lead-safe ordinance requires proactive inspections of all of the city’s small rental properties (those with 1–4 units), which make up nearly all of the city’s rental housing stock. The Toledo ordinance is modeled on a similar law in Rochester, New York, where the rate of lead poisoning has decreased by two-thirds over the 10 years since its enactment.
Like Rochester, Toledo does not require full lead abatement, which could cost tens of thousands of dollars for some properties. Rather, property owners are required only to address lead hazards through “interim controls,” which include but are not limited to
- Paint stabilization (covering exposed lead paint surfaces with non-lead paint);
- Specialized, professional cleaning to remove lead dust;
- Control of abrasion or friction points (repairs to eliminate surfaces where friction can generate lead dust particles if lead paint is present);
- Planting vegetation in bare soil under the roof dripline, where lead particles from external house paint scrapings or airborne lead particles from environmental lead contaminants can become concentrated due to rain runoff from the roof; and
- Resident education on routine cleaning to remove dust, including lead dust.
Interim controls are adequate to contain and nullify a lead paint hazard and thus protect residents from harm, but they do not remove lead from the property; therefore, properties must be re-inspected periodically. Under Toledo’s law, properties where interim measures are employed are certified lead safe for 4 years and are entered into a city registry of certified rentals, which the city plans to make available to renters online.
The Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition — a community group made up of church congregations, grassroots housing advocacy groups, and attorneys from Advocates for Basic Legal Equality — worked for more than 4 years to convince Toledo’s city council to enact the lead-safe ordinance. Their work was bolstered by parcel mapping and an analysis of blood lead test records by the Kirwan Institute that demonstrated the disparate impact of lead poisoning on Toledo’s African American and Hispanic children. The Kirwan Institute’s analysis also helped Toledo divide the city’s rental properties into three risk groups based on the average age and assessed value of the properties. These risk groups formed the basis for a phased implementation of property inspections and certifications. The oldest and lowest-value properties are presumed to be at highest risk for lead paint hazards and are required to be inspected in the first year, with inspections of moderate- and low-risk properties following in years 2 and 3.
During the campaign to enact the ordinance, pushback from property owners and real estate professionals in Toledo was severe and rife with misinformation about the requirements of the ordinance and the costs of implementing it, as well as scare tactics to dissuade renters from advocating for safe housing. When opponents failed to prevent the ordinance from becoming city law, they turned to their state representative, Derek Merrin (R-Ohio 47th) — himself an owner of rental properties in one of Toledo’s high-risk neighborhoods — to help nullify the Toledo ordinance. Merrin introduced into Ohio’s two-year budget bill an amendment that would confine all lead-related public health activities exclusively to the Ohio Department of Health, thereby superseding any locally enacted laws to address lead hazards. The Merrin amendment was removed in the Senate and was not part of the final budget bill signed by Governor John Kasich. Merrin has since introduced a stand-alone bill (HB 299) to accomplish what his amendment failed to do. That legislation is pending. This kind of attempt to enact preemptive measures at the state level to bar local safety initiatives is happening nationwide, in relation not only to lead but to many other civic issues, as noted later in this post.
In late November 2017, a coalition of Toledo landlords and real estate investors brought a lawsuit to nullify the city’s lead ordinance. That suit will move forward in Toledo courts in early 2018.
So far, compliance with the new lead-safe ordinance has been tepid, perhaps due to landlords’ pinning their hopes on the Merrin bill or the courts to nullify the ordinance. Assuming the ordinance survives these challenges and remains in force, compliance will likely increase, particularly with the imposition of fines in mid-2018 at the end of the first year of rental property registration.
Conclusion
With decades of public health research as its guide, the federal government has taken significant steps to ensure that, at least in subsidized housing, lead poisoning at home poses no threat to the health of residents. But federal lead remediation efforts currently in place are being targeted by the Trump administration, with our children’s health on the line. [1][2] Specific programs under threat include the Lead Risk Reduction Program, which offers education on lead exposure prevention and reduction, as well as a program granting state and tribal organizations funding to create their own lead prevention and abatement programs. These threats, on top of proposed cuts to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its programs, means safe housing is at risk.
Lead abatement efforts matter. A recent study found that people who were living in HUD-assisted homes had lower levels of lead in their blood compared with those who were not.[3] This finding suggests that children from low-income families have improved health when they have either increased access to subsidized housing or increased lead remediation and regulation.[4]
Despite the progress we have made in establishing national standards to mitigate exposure, half a million children across the country remain at risk.[5] Indeed, regulations on lead in paint, dust, soil, water, and occupational hazards use national standards that are 15–20 years old.[6] Our national standards are lagging behind where science tells us we need to be. For example, we have yet to enact standards concerning lead exposure for pregnant women and their unborn babies, despite proof of its risks for a developing fetus.
Much work needs to be done. According to HUD, about 23 million residences have lead hazards, and 3.6 million of those residences house young children.[7] According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 4.4 million old homes are in need of repair and renovation, activities that could lead to lead exposure for children.[8] While the fate of our federal lead remediation programs hangs in the balance, localities can work to pursue their own legislation, as Toledo and Rochester have done, working to uphold the notion that home does, in fact, mean safety.
[1] These suggested cuts in oversight of lead abatement are in addition to cuts proposed for the Environmental Protection Agency that would reduce funding and staff for safe drinking water programs, as well as proposed decreases in grants to states for monitoring public water systems, setting the stage for another crisis like the one in Flint, Michigan.
[2] Novoa, C. (2017, July 24). Trump’s cuts to lead abatement programs will hurt children most. www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/2017/07/24/436475/trumps-cuts-lead-abatement-programs-will-hurt-children/
[3] Ahrens, K. A., Haley, B. A., Rossen, L. M., Lloyd, P. C., & Aoki, Y. (2016). Housing assistance and blood lead levels: Children in the United States, 2005–2012. American Journal of Public Health, 106(11), 2049–2056. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303432
[4] Id.
[5] Health Impact Project. The Pew Charitable Trusts. (2017). 10 policies to prevent and respond to childhood lead exposure, p. 8. www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2017/08/hip_childhood_lead_poisoning_report.pdf
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
David Norris is senior researcher and director of health equity at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, where he manages their Health Equity Mapping projects. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, David was a researcher at Community Research Partners, and he also has more than 10 years’ experience in child advocacy and policy support.
Jillian Olinger is senior research associate and director of housing and civic engagement at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. She has deep expertise in a variety of social justice issues, including fair housing and fair credit, the intersection of child well-being and community development, and healthy neighborhoods.
Mary McKay, a graduate research associate and doctoral candidate in sociology, is a dedicated proponent of research promoting social justice and equity. Exploring the intersection of immigration and place, Mary researches how neighborhood context influences health outcomes among immigrants. Her latest project involves understanding the complexities that newly resettled refugees face when they arrive in the United States.
Photos by Flickr Creative Commons/Mary Vican and Upsplash/Jon Moore.
