CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland has cleared a backlog of 1,200 lead-safe applications ahead of schedule after enlisting volunteers from across City Hall to tackle the logjam.

The cleared backlog lets the city refocus on the bigger issue: trying to make real progress on preventing childhood lead poisoning.

The bureaucratic bottleneck was originally expected to take six months and was tying up key staffers as they reviewed paperwork submitted by landlords. But Cleveland’s Health Director Dr. David Margolius said workers from four other city departments were brought in to help Building & Housing review 1,000 applications in about a month.

t’s a great start, because that backlog had stymied Cleveland’s ability to move forward on changing how it tackles lead poisoning, said Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer. She said it tees up the pivotal question for Cleveland: What’s next?

“I still don’t think any of us think this program is making the difference it needs to make for our city’s kids,” Maurer said.

The application backlog is a footnote in Cleveland’s years-long story of trying to combat childhood lead poisoning. There’s been buy-in from both public and private partners, and the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition set aside tens of millions of dollars for lead abatement. But progress has been slow.

Cleveland’s lead-safe law, passed in 2019, requires owners of rental properties built before 1978 to certify that properties are lead-safe by having a private inspector do an inspection.

New data released in October showed that the lead-safe law had failed to protect young children from lead paint exposure. Mayor Justin Bibb responded by issuing an executive order mandating more rigorous testing for rental units.

Under the old system, the city required landlords to pass a “clearance exam,” a cheaper but less thorough test that would say if a home passed or failed as safe from lead.

Bibb now requires a “lead risk assessment,” which is more expensive but takes a more detailed look at problems that need to be fixed and areas of the home that aren’t unsafe today but could become unsafe later if left unchecked.

Windows and doors are a key area where, over time, opening and closing can rub away paint and expose lead dust. Margolius said the more rigorous tests identify these kinds of problems and give the inspector who review the paperwork more detail.

Landlords also must disclose these exams to renters, Margolius said. He said the quality difference between the old and new tests is “night and day.”

The change wasn’t immediate, though. Landlords had just a few days in October to turn in the less rigorous tests. So, they flooded the city with applications.

Cleveland’s Lead Program Manager Karen Dettmer told council members at a Feb. 26 budget hearing that it could take up to six months to tackle the backlog of applications.

And to do so, key staff — who are certified to do lead assessments — were tasked with reviewing paperwork instead of going out to inspect homes, or helping landlords connect to grants that could fund lead abatement.

A month later, the city decided that they could train volunteers to review these exams under Building and Housing’s supervision.

Margolius said Bibb brought everyone together on March 17, and 22 volunteers from the health department, human resources, mayor’s office and Office of Equal Opportunity were assigned to help the three people in Building and Housing review the applications.

He said training began on March 21, and that the staffers reviewed about 1,000 applications by April 9, bringing the backlog to zero.

Not every home was passed, with about 375 being sent back to landlords so they could provide more information.

It’s a good first step, Margolius said, comparing the rental units to patients in a hospital.

The landlords that are following the law are like patients with doctors, getting the attention they need, Margolius said.

Now the city can try to tackle the patients without doctors, or more plainly, the landlords who never submitted paperwork.

Building and Housing Director Sally Martin O’Toole said the department is back to its baseline, where it can review an application within 30 days. That frees up staff to focus more on enforcement.

Today, just over 24,500 rental units in Cleveland are lead-safe certified — about half of the city’s estimated 50,000 rentals.

That’s an improvement from before, but still not enough, Martin O’Toole said.

“This is a slow go, but we’re in it for the long haul,” she said.

The hope is that Cleveland’s new blight-fighting tools, part of the “Resident’s First” housing code overhaul last year, will give Building and Housing the enforcement tools it needs.

That legislation requires out-of-town landlords to designate a local agent who is responsible for a property, and point-of-sale inspections for vacant buildings that would require the new owner to fix some code violations.

It also gives inspectors the option of writing civil tickets, a $200 fine for people who ignore code violations: including not complying with the lead-safe law and registering rental units.

Martin O’Toole said the deadline to register rentals was March 31. As Building and Housing finishes that process, they can start identifying the homes that still aren’t complying.

Maurer said she’s grateful the backlog was tackled in two months instead of six, saying the public outcry likely pushed City Hall to get things moving.

Now Cleveland has to look at its data and decide on what changes to make in its strategy.

The issue with Cleveland’s lead strategy today is that the “safe” homes comply with the law, while the homes that need more lead abatement were often skirting the rules, Maurer said.

An apartment building built in the 1980s after lead paint was phased out may comply with the law, but those aren’t the high-risk areas that need focus, Maurer said.

Cleveland’s had a one-size-fits-all approach that means that some high-risk homes don’t get enough attention.

Maurer said the question for Cleveland is more philosophical: Should the city stay the course with its current lead-safety law, or pivot to a new approach?

For example, most children are poisoned from lead dust around windows, doors and porches. Does Cleveland need to drill down on these specific areas and help landlords and homeowners alike replace them?

Maurer said the underlying dispute is what to do next, though. She said people agree that Cleveland “is not yet making the difference we need to make.”