1. Toledo’s Community Efforts to Prevent Lead Poisoning
Robert A. Cole
Managing Attorney
Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc.

2. Lead Poisoning Continues to be a Serious Public Health Problem, Especially for Low Income, African American children
Lead poisoning poses serious health threats to adults and especially children. Even low levels of lead in a fetus or young child can produce a variety of impairments and health related problems, including reduced intelligence and decreased attention span, learning disabilities, hearing impairments, and behavioral problems. The most common exposure to lead hazards come from paint, soil, and dust hazards. These conditions are most commonly found in homes built before 1960.

3. Children are Lead Poisoned where they live.
Many homes in Toledo built before 1978 have lead paint on the inside and outside of the building. When old paint cracks and peels it makes lead dust. Children get lead poisoning from swallowing flakes of paint or paint dust on their hands and toys. Children can also breathe in lead dust.

4. Working with the Community to develop a solution
Community empowerment is more than involvement, participation, or engagement of the community. It implies community ownership and action that explicitly aims at social and political change. Communities can be effective in developing successful solutions that address serious public health issues like lead poisoning.

5. Community Empowerment Dimensions
Community empowerment is about working in ways which empower people – ways which mean that people feel ‘confident’, that they – and the groups they are involved in – are inclusive and organized, that networks are formed, are cooperative and support each other and – ultimately – they are influential. This grassroots approach allows for integration of characteristics and factors unique to the community.

6. Community Participation and Empowerment Strategies
support for grassroots community-level development and capacity-building;
the establishment and strengthening of networks and infrastructures for communities and professionals working to enable participation; and
a commitment to meaningful organizational development, to ensure that grassroots action for participation feeds into and influences the mainstream.

7. Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition and Community Involvement
Support the development of a community based coalition.
a. Include organizations and community groups with a shared interest in a solution to a significant problem identified by the community.
b. Make sure that community members, who are directly impacted by the “problem,” are included in the coalition and have a voice in the solution to the “problem.”
c. Support the development of guiding principles and clearly identified outcomes that the group hopes to accomplish.

8. Stronger and Effective Coalition
With the community needs clearly outlined by the community itself, the coalition was able to better develop proposal to address lead poisoning using a primary preventive approach. Additionally, our coalition of community groups, community members and community partners created a unified approach that allowed us to develop and implement a strategy resulting in the adoption of a Lead Safe Rental Property Ordinance by the City of Toledo.

9. What is the purpose of the ordinance?
In efforts to prevent lead poisoning, the City of Toledo is requiring that any rental properties (4 units or less) and in-home daycares constructed prior to 1978 be registered with the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department and, after inspection by a Local Lead Inspector, obtain a Lead-Safe Certificate. Many of the rental property owners in Toledo do maintain their properties and are not the source of the lead poisoning occurring in Toledo.

10. What does the ordinance require?
FIRST: Rental property owners will need each unit that is owned and constructed prior to 1978 to be inspected by a Local Lead Inspector. A Local Lead Inspector is considered an individual that is registered through the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, licensed by the Ohio Department of Health. If an individual is not registered through the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, they are not qualified to do an inspection according to the ordinance.

11. What does the ordinance require?
SECOND:
Rental Property Owners should work with the Local Lead Inspector to prepare the unit for inspection. The unit should be free of deteriorating paint and there should be no bare soil on the dripline (a three foot area surrounding the structure of the unit).
Although it may be easiest for the unit to be vacant at the time of inspection, it is not necessary or advised to evict current tenants from the unit. There are steps that can be taken to prepare the property for a “dust wipe” test without the property being vacant.
What does the ordinance require?

12. What does the ordinance require?
THIRD: Upon passing the inspection, the Local Lead Inspector will provide the paperwork to necessary to complete registration for rental property. The following items are needed in order to register rental property: 1) A completed application 2) A Lead-Safe Report issued by a Local Lead Inspector 3) A filing fee of $ Once these items are submitted to the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department they will be processed and a Lead Safe Certificate will be issued.

13. What does the ordinance require?
An Unsatisfactory Inspection: If the property does not pass the lead-safe inspection, the owner of the unit is required to prepare the house for re-inspection. This may include repainting, remodeling, removal or permanent covering of lead-contaminated soil, or cleaning the unit as recommended by the Local Lead Inspector. EPA RRP Rules apply when conducting work to address potential lead hazards.

14. What does the ordinance require?
How long does the Lead-Safe Certificate last?
The “Lead-Safe Certificate” will expire from the date of issuance as follows:
Three years from the date of issuance for any property that fails the initial visual inspection or dust wipe test
Six years from the date of issuance for any property that passes the initial visual and dust wipe inspection
Twenty years from the date of issuance if the Residential Rental Property or Family Child Care Home has undergone proper Lead Abatement and can provide proof.
What does the ordinance require?

15. What does the ordinance require?
Fines for Non-Compliance: Anyone found in violation of the ordinance is subject to a $50.00 per day fine per unit with a maximum penalty of $10,000 per year per unit.

16. What does the ordinance require?
Changes in Residency or Ownership: Properties undergoing sales, purchases, or transfers of ownership must be issued an updated “Lead-Safe Certificate” in the name of the new Owner. The certificate will expire on the same date as indicated on the original certificate.

17. LEAD ORDINANCE 3-YEAR IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
The three year phase in of the Lead Ordinance is based on requiring those rental properties that are located in Census Tracts that have been determine to pose the greatest danger of lead exposure to children shall be required to register first, by June 30, 2018; those rental properties that pose the next greatest risk to register second by June 30, 2019; and those rental properties posing the least risk of lead exposure to children registering third, by June 30, 2020.

18. Prioritizing Toledo neighborhoods for a lead-safe rental registry: Indicators by Census Tract
Based on an analysis of public health data, including all the reported cases in which children have been lead poisoned over the past five years, Census as well as residential parcel information, each Census Tract in the City of Toledo has been analyzed, using these variables: 1. Number of housing units in properties with 1-4 housing units: 2. Percent of housing units that are renter-occupied: 3. Age of housing: Housing units built before 1950: 4. Refinement: Average year built: 5. Number of confirmed BLLs 5 ug/dL or greater.

19. Opposition and Objections to the Ordinance:
Why apply to only 1-4 Units and not all property?
Cost: Abatement versus Interim Controls.
Dust Wipes
Tenants living in property:
a. Inspections:
b. Cleaning in order to pass dust wipe test.
5. PHA exception:

20. Contact Information
Robert A. Cole Managing Attorney Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (419)