Cleveland Summit Rallies Hundreds Against Lead Poisoning

Updated 7:30 p.m., 6/21

Clevelanders will have to work together to put an end to lead poisoning, said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who helped expose the toxicity of water in Flint, Michigan, at the kickoff for Cleveland's Lead Safe Home Summit Friday morning.

“I hope that this story is a rallying cry to remind us that it is our very civic and human responsibility to open our eyes,” she said in her keynote address.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who called attention to contaminated water in Flint, speaks at Cleveland's Lead Safe Home Summit June 21. [Nick Castele / ideastream]

Hundreds of people attended the daylong summit at the downtown Huntington Convention Center. City officials, philanthropic groups and nonprofits organized the event as part of a new push to protect children from poisoning by lead paint in Cleveland’s aging housing stock.

City leaders opened the summit pledging to follow through on legislation requiring landlords to make their properties safe from lead paint. Cleveland City Council moved the measure forward at a committee hearing at the event.

“We’re in this for the long haul,” Councilman Blaine Griffin said. “We’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that we protect our children in the city of Cleveland.”

Mayor Frank Jackson told the audience, which included nonprofit leaders and advocates for lead-safe housing, that the solution requires the involvement of all parts of the city.

“No one can take a bye,” Jackson said.

Organizers prepared breakout sessions on tenant rights, controlling lead hazards at home, testing for lead poisoning and other topics.

Efforts against lead poisoning should include the people most affected, Monica Lewis-Patrick with the group We the People of Detroit.

“It should not be a room of policymakers and funders and nonprofits,” Lewis-Patrick said. “It has to be those frontline practitioners of parents and grandparents that are going to all of those medical appointments and the person who’s trying to scrap up enough money to be able to meet the environmental demands.”

Dr. Aparna Bole of UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital said many of the children she’s admitted with serious lead poisoning the last three years have come from refugee families.

“I think it’s a common misconception that refugee children are exposed in their country of origin,” Bole said. “That’s actually not the case the majority of the time. These kids are being exposed in unsafe housing here in Cleveland.”

Lead-Safe Measure Moves Closer To Passage

Cleveland City Council members listed to testimony at the Lead Safe Home Summit. [Nick Castele / ideastream]

Cleveland City Council’s Health and Human Services Committee approved legislation at the summit requiring lead-safe rentals. Their vote sends the measure on to future committee hearings before it comes up for final passage.

The measure mandates that owners of rental properties built before 1978 obtain certificates that their homes are clear of lead hazards.

Implementing the legislation will require more than just conducting lead tests and enforcing compliance, Building and Housing Director Ayonna Blue Donald said.

“It’s also changing the practices of people, and that’s landlord and tenants,” she said. “To inform and educate people about interim controls, about if you just scuff a wall and there’s chipping or peeling paint, how to fix that situation.”

Council heard testimony from one West Side landlord who backs the measure. Scott Kroehle said he owns 16 occupied rental units, which are home to families with 23 children.

“We have the moral imperative to ensure that these children are protected whether or not I personally have the know-how, or the resources or even the basic inclination to do so,” he said.

A lead paint clearance test will likely run a landlord about $250, and a more in-depth risk assessment can cost $400 to $500, according to Environment Health Watch director Kim Foreman, who testified at the hearing.

Cleveland leaders plan to raise money to help landlords afford tests and lead paint controls. The fund may receive some seed money from the state. The Ohio Senate approved a budget amendment this week slating $2 million over two years for the city’s lead safe coalition.

Councilman Tony Brancatelli, who supports the legislation, warned that landlords may pass the costs of compliance on to their tenants.

“What we’re passing today is going to be an increase in rent,” Brancatelli said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing, because the rents are going to have to go up to cover the costs that are being mandated to get these clearances.”

Some landlords who attended the summit opposed the measure. Ben Rosolowski said city council was targeting landlords without addressing lead paint in owner-occupied homes.

“What about everyone living in grandma’s house, and the other people, we don’t care about those kids?” he said in an interview. “Why are we only going to go after the landlords and force them into making sure their houses are safe?”

Council plans more hearings on the legislation July 23 and 24.