'I shouldn't have to worry about it as much as I do'

Cleveland continues to struggle to reach its goal to be lead safe by 2028.

The city has received only about 350 new lead safe certification applications each quarter for the past few quarters, according to Rob Fischer, Lead Safe Auditor, City of Cleveland.

"At one point, we had nearly 1,000 applications a quarter during 2022 and we knew we needed to go higher," he said. "We needed to be something closer to 2500."

Fischer also expressed concern only 20% of landlords who have already received a lead safe certificate are renewing on schedule, when they hit their two-year termination of their certificate.

"That's really troubling because the whole theory of this ordinance is that once you get a property lead safe that you continue to renew that certificate to insure that the lead safety is present," he said.

Fischer said, overall, about 8,000 properties have sought lead safe certification, which is about 30% of the "rental universe" in Cleveland.

"That's encouraging," he said. "But it's below where we need to be."

'Incredibly hard work'

"You might think why can't we just get these properties in compliance?" he said. "This
is incredibly hard work."

He said the Cleveland rental market is "incredibly diffuse" with "something like 40,000" different property owners."

He said some owners are corporations with no connection to Cleveland.

Others are mom-and-pop shops, who are often low-income owners renting to low-income tenants "so they have precious little capacity to actually make repairs."

Cleveland has created an online portal to streamline the application process. The city also plans to hire a team of inspectors to help enforce lead safe laws.

Cleveland passed a law requiring landlords to make their properties lead safe in 2019 to help prevent lead poisoning in children.

Fischer said his research found 25% of Cleveland children have lead poisoned by the time they reach kindergarten.

There are a number of challenges to make Cleveland lead safe.

Fischer said there are a relatively small number of lead inspectors to do require inspections.

Cleveland also requires landlords to pay out of pocket for the inspections and then apply to be reimbursed.

'Contamination... no remediation'

Cleveland resident Shirley Bell-Wheeler said the city should make lead abatement a higher priority.

"I shouldn't have to worry about it as much as I do," she said.

She said she tests her children for lead every year. So far, their levels are safe.

Bell-Wheeler was concerned after she learned there were toxic levels of lead in some areas of her community garden RevLove Urban Farm .

"That's why we do raised beds everywhere, just to be safe," she said. "We get our soil tested, but also in some areas of our farm, we just don't plant vegetables."

She blames dust and debris left by demolished homes that once stood on the vacant lots behind her garden on Imperial Avenue.

"There's contamination and there's no remediation going on," she said.