Holding Property Owners and Government Agencies Accountable:
A Discussion Paper on Prevention Goals and Strategies
To Complement Housing Hazard Investigations
by
Community Environmental Health Resource Center (CEHRC)

A great deal of work by staff and volunteers of local groups and staff at “CEHRC central” has made it possible for community residents to use low-tech tools to investigate high-risk homes and document environmental health hazards.  Most local groups are identifying hazards in a significant percentage of homes investigated, and most are assisting families where immediate hazards are found.  But documenting hazards and giving advice to individual families are not the ultimate objectives of CEHRC.  CEHRC’s higher goal is for local groups to use data as a tool for community organizing and advocacy to hold property owners and government agencies accountable for addressing unhealthy housing on a broader, even community-wide, scale. 

Documenting hazards in many homes in a community proves that there is a serious, extensive, and overlooked problem – and points to the need for effective action by owners and government agencies.  It allows advocates to say: “Here’s concrete evidence that human health hazards are widespread in our community’s homes.  Since these hazards are not now being addressed, we demand immediate improvements in laws, policies, programs and enforcement to protect our children.” 

Usually, the housing crisis facing low-income families is viewed as an affordability problem.  Focusing on the relationship between substandard housing and human health (especially children’s health) can be powerful new leverage for advocates to win meaningful government action to increase resources for affordable housing. 

Deciding what objectives to pursue is up to each local organization and community residents.  This paper outlines examples of the kinds of victories local organizations might win by leveraging data documenting health hazards in housing.  The topics covered in this paper are:

1. Code Enforcement
2. Tenant Organizing / Legal Advocacy
3. Community Based Maintenance and Repairs
4. Generating Resources for Safe Repairs Targeted to Highest Risk Homes
5. Leveraging the Federal Lead Disclosure Law
6. Effective Enforcement of Federal Lead-Safe Housing Requirements
7. Enacting New Laws
8. Other Strategies

1. Code Enforcement

Code inspectors routinely visit homes in substandard condition, and have the power to compel property owners to correct violations cited.  The code enforcement system therefore presents obvious opportunities for advocates to secure solutions to unhealthy housing.  In most jurisdictions, many housing-related health hazards (e.g., peeling paint, pests) are already considered health or housing code violations.  In other places, the underlying causes of these hazards (e.g., water leaks) may be code violations.  Effective enforcement of codes, and integration of health hazards into existing codes and enforcement systems, can go a long way toward making housing more healthful. 

Advocates can use hazard investigation results (including photographic evidence of substandard conditions) to support their demands for tougher, smarter code enforcement that treats peeling paint and other substandard conditions important to residents’ health as urgent health and safety hazards.  The fact that the hazards documented are presently being ignored is clear evidence of the need for additional action.  Some things advocates can demand include:

• Requiring code inspectors to check for lead dust hazards whenever a peeling paint violation is identified.
• Requiring code inspectors to perform a full investigation of a home in which hazards have been identified.
• Requiring that code inspectors be trained in lead dust sampling.
• Including lead-contaminated dust and lead in soil hazards as code violations.
• Banning unsafe work practices for activities that repair or disturb painted surfaces.
• Requiring property owners to use workers trained in lead-safe work practices to correct violations.
• Demanding that additional code inspectors be hired.
• Demanding that code enforcement be targeted to highest risk neighborhoods and properties (blocks where problem buildings are concentrated, multiple properties owned by landlords with a history of any code violations, other units in buildings where violations have been identified, etc.).
• Creating and funding receivership programs that transfer operational control of substandard properties from negligent owners to building managers appointed and supervised by a judge.

The Alliance has written a paper discussing 10 opportunities to leverage code enforcement to further lead poisoning prevention (available at www.aeclp.org/strategies.pdf).  Policy Link has a web page that discusses methods and pitfalls (gentrification and housing loss) associated with code enforcement strategies (www.policylink.org/EquitableDevelopment/XQ/ASP/ID.2/QX/fsToolMain.htm).

2. Tenant Organizing / Legal Advocacy

With or without specific legal rights, tenants can demand repairs and good maintenance from their landlord far more effectively if they organize and work together.  This applies to tenants who live in different properties owned by the same landlord as well as those who live in multi-unit buildings or complexes.  There’s safety and power in numbers.  The larger and more united the group of tenants working together for improvements, the more likely they will win meaningful improvements. 

Many rights of tenants are found in state or local tenant-landlord law, housing codes or court decisions.  Educating the tenants about their legal rights helps them weigh the potential gains and risks of getting involved in advocacy campaigns and often reduces fear about standing up for their rights.  Having accurate information also makes it more likely that tenants will follow proper procedures and exercise their rights to the maximum extent possible.

The CEHRC web site discusses the power of tenant organizing and provides links to other web resources that describe how to organize strong tenant associations.  See www.cehrc.org/communities/tenants/_communities_tenants_tenant_organizing.cfm.

Attorneys specializing in housing and/or tenant-landlord law can provide valuable support to tenants.  If owners stonewall tenant demands, public interest or volunteer attorneys can help tenant groups exercise their legal rights, including bringing their cases to housing court or, in some jurisdictions, to small claims court.  Laws and courts vary from place to place, but data documenting health hazards can often be the crucial evidence that establishes standing in court and makes the difference in winning meaningful remedies.  In some jurisdictions, tenants may pay rent to an escrow account for needed repairs instead of to a landlord in violation.

3. Community-Based Maintenance and Repairs

Creating a community-based “delivery system” for making and keeping homes safe is a natural extension of training community residents in hazard assessment, health education and community organizing.  As advocacy and organizing trigger action to control hazards, these projects should employ workers who live in the affected community.

Local groups may be able to start a small community-based business or non-profit subsidiary that delivers healthy housing repair and maintenance services.  Building upon basic skills obtained from the federal Lead Sampling Technician and lead-safe work practices courses, workers can acquire additional expertise and qualifications through other training and work experience.  Contracting to perform lead dust clearance testing required in most HUD-assisted housing could be a new source of income to help sustain such businesses.  A federal law known as “Section 3” (of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968) requires recipients of HUD funding to give contracting and hiring preferences to firms that employ low-income community residents or residents of HUD-assisted properties.  (See www.hud.gov/fhe/sect3faq.html for more information.)  In some communities, there may be non-profit groups that utilize volunteer tradespeople to provide home repairs to qualified properties.  Providing appropriate training in safe work practices for such volunteers can help make these groups a part of the solution.  Alternately, community based organizations can advocate for the use of small contractors whose employees live in the community.

4. Generating Resources for Safe Repairs Targeted to Highest Risk Homes

Perhaps the biggest barrier to addressing housing related health hazards in substandard housing is the scarcity of available funding.  Advocates should consider strategies to win additional funding to meet their objectives. 

In many cities, HUD’s lead hazard control and healthy homes grants programs are major sources of funding for healthy housing repairs.  This year, HUD will make a supplemental $50 million for lead hazard control available competitively to the 25 major urban areas with the worst problems.  Cities of all sizes can apply for an additional $96 million available for lead hazard control grants.  If your city agencies have not considered applying for these funds, they should.  Advocates may improve their city’s chances of winning HUD lead or healthy homes grants by incorporating into funding proposals documentation of the extent and severity of hazards in local housing.  HUD requires that government agencies partner with community based organizations to qualify for lead hazard control grants.

Advocates also can work to secure other sources of funds for repairs.  For example, a few locales (Massachusetts; California; Rhode Island; Cook Co., IL) have created dedicated funding streams to subsidize hazard control activities in response to advocates’ demands.

Finally, cities, counties and states receive federal housing and community development funds through their CDBG and HOME entitlements.  Federal block grants can be used for a wide variety of activities, with priorities largely determined by the local political process.  For information about strategies for targeting such funds to upgrade properties with lead and/or other health hazards, see www.aeclp.org/conplanrev.1.doc. 

5. Leveraging the Federal Lead Disclosure Law

Federal law requires landlords and their agents to disclose lead hazards to their tenants.  Unfortunately, in many communities, owners of very low-income rental properties – the very properties that typically pose the most serious lead hazards – ignore the disclosure law completely:  no pamphlet delivery, no information disclosure, no paperwork whatsoever.  To the extent that disclosure occurs, many landlords check the “Don’t Know” box, claiming ignorance about lead-based paint or lead hazards in their properties.  Although the law carries no requirements for owners to check for hazards or to take corrective action if hazards are identified, it does provide for fines up to $11,000 per violation and treble damages in some cases – which can give advocates new leverage.   

Federal agencies have demonstrated this law’s potential for catalyzing corrective action.  HUD, EPA, and the Department of Justice have obtained court decisions and consent decrees requiring violators to get lead inspections and control hazards in all their properties.  In many cases, health departments and community-based organizations have assisted HUD and EPA in identifying chronic violators who own or manage multiple rental properties.  Altogether, disclosure enforcement actions by federal agencies and U.S. attorneys have prompted private landlords to perform inspections and risk assessments to ensure that more than 150,000 units are lead-safe and to invest more than $14 million in lead abatement work. 

Yet the full potential of the disclosure law has only begun to be realized.  Advocates across the country are finding many other promising strategies to leverage the disclosure law, including:

• Helping document violations of the disclosure law, including documenting property owners’ failure to deliver the EPA pamphlet or disclose known information and, in some cases, identifying the actual owner of a problem property. 
• Providing rental property owners data about lead paint hazards in their properties obtained through hazard assessments.
• Informing tenants in high-risk neighborhoods of their rights under the federal fair housing and lead disclosure laws.
• Reporting to appropriate fair housing agencies landlords who respond to concern over lead hazards by discriminating against families with children.
• Reporting disclosure violations by recalcitrant landlords to HUD, EPA, and U.S. Attorneys. 

6. Effective Enforcement of Federal Lead-Safe Housing Requirements

In September 2000, new HUD lead safety requirements took effect for most HUD-assisted properties built before 1978.  While requirements – and compliance – vary from program to program, even the most basic HUD rules require a “floor” of lead safety measures (visual inspections, safe paint repair, clearance testing) that could well be adapted as a standard for much of a community’s private housing stock.  (In general, lead safety requirements vary among programs based on HUD’s financial investment in, and duration of relationship to, the property, as well as the age of the structure.)  Non-lead health hazards related to substandard conditions (water leaks, moisture and ventilation problems, pest infestation) may also be significantly reduced through better enforcement of HUD’s housing quality standards (HQS).

Privately owned properties that are part of the Section 8 rental voucher program are the HUD-assisted properties most likely to contain lead paint hazards and thus offer the best opportunity for advocates to have a significant impact on lead safety through advocacy for proper enforcement of the rules.  Advocates can also target other properties covered by the rules, such as older public housing and project-based Section 8 and other project-based rental assistance properties. (For example, the Cleveland Tenants Organization is pursuing ways to use the Mark-to-Market program to control hazards in older housing.)  We note, however, that most properties with project-based rental assistance were built after 1960 and therefore are less likely to contain significant lead paint hazards.  Likewise, because of the federal rules, these properties as well as public housing, should already have received hazard control treatments or even full abatement.  Advocates my find that prevalence of lead hazards in such properties and compliance with the federal rules varies from national averages, so some environmental testing may be warranted.

Information about what lead safety requirements apply to particular housing programs can be found at www.hud.gov/offices/lead/leadsaferule/summary.cfm.

7. Enacting New Laws

Most cities and states do not have strong laws that require environmental health hazards to be identified and safely repaired before a child’s health is harmed.  Many places do require environmental investigations of residences for lead paint hazards after a poisoned child is identified, but even then hazards are often not fixed – or are not fixed safely.  For other environmental health hazards such as radon, carbon monoxide, mold, and pests, laws are either non-existent or (as is often the case for cockroach and rodent infestation) written so that the remedies (inappropriate spraying of pesticides) can cause other health problems.  New laws are needed that reflect sound science. 

Data documenting hazardous conditions in local housing can provide advocates with strong justification for new laws to address the problem.  Examples of new legislation that might be sought (in addition to measures described in the “Code Enforcement” section) include:

• Requiring owners to periodically test for and correct hazards.
• Requiring maintenance and painting practices designed to prevent hazards.

8. Other Strategies

• Get the attention of landlords who want to do the right thing and help them obtain training in lead safe work practices.
• Enforce state or local lead safe work practice requirements and bans on unsafe work practices (where these exist).