Cleveland officials outline progress and gaps in Lead Safe program as funding, data and enforcement strain effort to lower child poisonings

Council members and city and nonprofit officials on Wednesday laid out where Cleveland’s Lead Safe program stands, saying some administrative fixes are working but that the city still is not reducing childhood lead poisoning fast enough.

The most immediate figures came from Dr. David Margolius, director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health, who said 1,369 children were referred to the health department in 2024 with elevated blood lead levels above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter and that the city’s overall lead poisoning rate has been “stable over the last 5, 6 years.” He told the committee Cleveland’s rates remain higher than peer cities and attributed most local poisoning to deteriorated lead paint in older housing, not water.

The city and partners described multiple strands of the program: inspection and enforcement by the Department of Building & Housing, remediation and grant management by the Department of Community Development, the privately administered Lead Safe Home Fund and Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, and the advisory role of the Lead Safe Advisory Board. Each organization reported progress and constraints: backlog work cleared, more rigorous inspection standards adopted, new enforcement tools being used — but limited contractor capacity, slow grant outlays and gaps in shared data that hamper oversight.

“We accept either a clearance exam or a lead risk assessment to indicate that lead hazards are not identified in the unit,” said Sally Martin O’Toole, director of Building & Housing, describing a policy shift the city has implemented to align with HUD and the Ohio Department of Health. “Clearance exams are only accepted if abatement or renovation work has been completed; risk assessments are the recommended way to determine presence or absence of hazards.”

Martin O’Toole and her staff reported operational improvements: a cleared backlog of about 1,200 files, consolidation of reports into a single Acela database, and a plan to issue a first bulk batch of 278 civil tickets to property owners who previously submitted failing dust-wipe results but never obtained Lead Safe certification. She said the department has filed roughly 250 criminal cases related to lead hazard control orders and described 790 affidavits of fact filed to “cloud” titles of properties with unresolved lead hazard control orders; 13 such affidavits have been released after compliance and many orders have been brought into compliance without prosecution.

Community Development said it is managing a mix of grant-funded remediation and directly managed home repair work. Alyssa Hernandez, director of Community Development, introduced staff who said the city received $4.9 million from the Ohio Department of Development (Lead Safe Ohio grant) for remediation work through Feb. 28, 2026, with $3.5 million to be administered by CHN Housing Partners and $1 million reserved for city-managed projects. Gina Ventre, a manager in Community Development, said CHN’s pipeline included 74 eligible applicants, three active jobs and 17 completed jobs, and that CHN expects to spend down its allocation during 2025.

The privately administered Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition reported larger totals of philanthropic and ARPA-funded effort but warned that most committed funds remain to be spent in properties. Ayanna Bludonnell of Enterprise Community Partners said the Coalition’s Lead Safe Home Fund has had more than 4,600 certification incentives issued and has awarded grants and loans to hundreds of units, but that the coalition is revising rules (removing income caps and grant caps for ARPA-funded work) to move more money into home repair projects. The coalition said it has committed about $91.9 million of philanthropic and other funds over a multi‑year plan, has received roughly $32.5 million to date and has dispersed about $20 million overall; about $7.7 million has gone directly into grants, loans and incentives to property owners so far.

Coalition staff emphasized the scale issue: many applications are owner‑occupied homes, not rental units with children, and many lead hazard jobs are more expensive than early funding assumptions allowed. “When we are going into properties, we are seeing properties in much graver state than we originally thought,” Bludonnell said. She said the coalition is preparing a contract amendment to lift caps and redirect funds to remediation to increase the number of completed repairs in 2025.

Advisory board members pressed for better data and formal authority. Scott Kraly, co‑chair of the Lead Safe Advisory Board, told the committee the board has met quarterly since 2021 but lacks reliable, consolidated data after the Lead Safe auditor’s contract expired in mid‑2024. “In effect, we’ve been flying blind,” Kraly said, adding that the board needs staff support, timely data from both the city and the coalition, a structured reporting cadence to city council and a formal role in policy development so recommendations can lead to action.

Kraly and Rob Fisher, a former Lead Safe auditor on the advisory board, also flagged a coverage problem: most compliance so far comes from larger apartment buildings that are easier to certify, while single‑family and duplex homes — the housing types most associated with children’s lead exposure — remain underrepresented in compliance data.

Council members pressed the city and the coalition on several fronts: how many units are actively certified, how many certifications have expired, and the pace at which grant money is reaching homes. City staff gave a consolidated current total of 24,705 certified records and said 4,532 records have expired, with 662 of those subsequently renewed; council members asked the administration to break those numbers down by units versus parcels and by housing type. Building & Housing officials said the parcel report now distinguishes one‑family, two‑family and multifamily parcels but that they will produce unit counts on request.

Officials described enforcement and legal outcomes in detail. Building & Housing and the city law department reported 62 cases filed in court with 33 convictions, 97 cases pending, and pre‑prosecution intervention protocols used to bring owners into compliance; the department said 216 lead hazard control orders have been brought into compliance without legal intervention. The administration said it will use civil tickets and notices more aggressively to compel registration and certification.

Coalition and city officials named several operational constraints: a small pool of certified risk assessors and trained contractors, HUD administrative requirements for federal grants, contractor capacity and onboarding delays for a new city Lead Safe auditor and other staff openings. Community Development and the Coalition said they are onboarding third‑party risk assessors and a planned “implementation vendor” to scale contractor management; they also plan a mid‑2025 pilot for relocation assistance and a screening/testing pilot with Better Health Partnership funded by ARPA.

Council members repeatedly returned to a single metric they want tracked closely: how much money is actually getting into properties to reduce lead hazards. The coalition and city agreed to report a clearer, shared figure that isolates money spent on physical remediation (window/door replacement, abatement, clearance testing, etc.) versus administrative or programmatic costs.

Committee members pressed for clearer, shared data and for an accelerated plan to target highest‑risk neighborhoods and housing types. Scott Kraly asked council to provide the board modest staff support and a clear line to council so the board’s quarterly findings can translate into legislative or administrative changes.

The panel closed with a pledge to continue the review and to return with more detailed, shared metrics — including unit‑level counts, a precise accounting of funds spent into homes, and a clearer timeline for CHN and other administrators to spend ARPA and grant funds. Council members also requested copies of federal and HUD correspondence they had been shown about funding uncertainties in order to inform the city’s advocacy and possible legal strategies.

The meeting did not include any formal council votes; officials described ongoing enforcement actions and grant awards but no ordinance amendments or new legislation were adopted during the session.