CLEVELAND — Cleveland’s lead poisoning rate is more than double the rate in peer cities like Detroit, Toledo, Akron and Cincinnati, according to data from the city’s department of public health. 

“What's going on in Cleveland is our lead poisoning rate is the highest in the country,” Dr. Dave Margolius, the city’s public health director, said. “You know, nearly one in five children are testing positive for lead poisoning.”

Margolius said lead is a neurotoxin that causes irreversible brain damage to babies who are exposed to it. The department reports more than 1,300 children tested for elevated blood lead levels in 2024.

Over the past five years, city leaders have worked to address Cleveland’s lead crisis through legislation and executive orders that require property owners to register their properties as lead safe. Regardless, the rate of lead poisoning has hovered around 20% since 2019. 

“It's really hard to get that that number to budge because there are so many old homes in the city of Cleveland built before lead paint was outlawed,” Margolius said.

In a Health and Human Services Committee Monday morning, the city’s director of Building and Housing, Sally Martin O’Toole, said her team has worked through their backlog of 1,200 applications from landlords seeking to certify their properties and is now focusing on inspections and enforcement.

In partnership with the law department, the department of Building and Housing has issued a batch of 278 civil tickets to property owners who haven’t complied with the city’s lead safety requirements, and filed 250 criminal lawsuits against non-compliant landlords in homes of kids who have been poisoned. 

Martin O’Toole said this first round of tickets were issued to owners who applied for the Lead Safe Certificate, submitted failing dust swipes and never followed through with remediation.

“Soon, now that we have completed our rental registration process for the year — it closed on March 31 — we’re going to begin enforcement on those on the rental registry who have not attempted to obtain their lead safe certification,” Martin O’Toole said.

As of Monday, Martin O’Toole estimated up to 50% of all rentals in the city have been certified as lead safe, though council member Rebecca Maurer said that number is uncertain because it’s difficult for the city to know how many properties aren’t on the rental registry.

Lead remediation projects can be expensive. Several agencies across the city, like the department of Community Development and the Cleveland Lead Safe Coalition, are also working with property owners to help finance those projects. The Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition has fundraised around $100 million. In a presentation Monday, the group reports they have spent about $20 million so far — $7.7 million of which was given directly to property owners for remediation.

The city has also received about $17 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development but have yet to spend more than $13 million of that funding, which is set to expire at different points of 2025. The first deadline is approaching on May 30.

Representatives from the Department of Community Development said they have asked HUD to extend the deadline on those grants but haven’t yet gotten approval.

As the federal government under President Donald Trump makes cuts to the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, Margolius said he’s concerned. 

“There were estimates maybe 15 years ago that in order to get all the lead out of Cleveland, it would cost $2 billion, $3 billion,” he said. “We've raised $100 million, which a lot of people thought the work is done. We've got $100 million. But $2 billion compared to $100 million? So, we know we need a federal investment. Our city government, we can't do this alone. We need help from every level of government and the private sector to help get the lead out of these homes.”

Council member Rebecca Maurer said all partners need to be working more quickly to get money into homes and neighborhoods. 

“There's a question of how easily are we getting money out the door,” Maurer said. “Think about it like a spigot. Is the is the water flowing right? And it's been really ratcheted down, for a long time.”

City leaders continue to debate the best approach to improving Cleveland’s housing health, and there are many programs and organizations working to address the crisis in what Council member Maurer calls the “lead safe ecosystem.”

One of those groups, the Lead Safe Advisory Board (LSAB), which Maurer co-chairs, is meant to review citywide lead safety efforts and their effectiveness, providing recommendations for changes and improvements.

Scott Kroehle, who sits on that board, said they’re hoping to take a more active role in informing council’s decisions. He said he thinks they should take a stronger approach to enforcement and helping property owners do the expensive work to remediate lead risks.

“You can give a violation notice, but if it’s a $40,000 job to replace the windows and doors and the person is making $600 a month in rent, it’s not going to happen anytime soon, no matter how much you wish it,” Kroehle said. “So, we really have to be looking at both sides of that equation, both the enforcing what needs to be done and also, getting it done.”

City leaders and community partners are continuing the work and debate over how to amend the current lead safe laws to help better reach their goals.