51 houses still in use despite order to vacate

The owners of 51 Columbus residences have been told their properties, mostly rentals, must be vacated because of a lead hazard.

The houses, duplexes and apartments have been referred to the city attorney’s office for action.

The properties are among 540 on a state registry whose owners have refused to comply with an order from the Ohio Department of Health or a local Board of Health to correct known lead hazards, department spokesman Russ Kennedy said.

Columbus has more properties on the registry than any other Ohio city.

Ten of the 51 houses in the city have children living in them, said Jose Rodriguez, spokesman for Columbus Public Health.

“Placards have been slapped on the houses saying that they should be vacant,” Rodrigeuz said.

The properties are unsafe for habitation, especially for pregnant women and children 6 years old or younger.

Gloria Maynard lives in one side of a duplex she owns on South Hague Avenue on the Hilltop. Her daughter and granddaughter live in the other half with two of Maynard’s great-grandchildren. The half in which the children live is on the registry.

“The oldest, she’ll turn 3 in June, has her blood tested often and she’s never had lead,” said Maynard, who said she bought the house a year or two ago.

“That is terrific,” Rodriguez said, “but there should be no risk in that house.”

Maynard said a neighbor told her that some people went into the house recently and came back out. “I thought they took care of it,” she said.

More likely, those were city workers placing the lead- warning placard on the house,

Rodriguez said.

Assistant City Attorney Steve Dunbar said his office will review each case and the properties “may fall into several buckets.”

Some owners might be sued if they refuse to vacate the residences, he said, but new owners might be given time to remove the lead hazard.

“We might look at it and say we need to send a notice to have that owner refuse before it’s ready for a lawsuit,” Dunbar said.

Kennedy said the most common lead hazard is deteriorating lead-based paint that creates paint chips or dust, in housing built before 1978.

The two-year state budget proposed by Gov. John Kasich would create a new, voluntary Lead-Safe Housing Registry to make it easier for Ohio families to identify lead-safe housing when looking for a place to live, he said.

“We think that in addition to giving people access to a list of lead-safe housing, it also makes sense to give them access to a list of properties that are known to have uncontrolled lead hazards,” Kennedy said.

The department also is reaching out to Ohio’s rental-assistance organizations to request their help in protecting children from lead-hazard housing.

“Lead poisoning disproportionately affects children in low-income families like those who receive rental assistance,” Kennedy said in an email.

Officials in Columbus, Toledo and other large Ohio cities object to a separate budget amendment that apparently would preempt local lead ordinances.

David Norris, a senior researcher at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, said such a law would hamstring Toledo and other communities that want their own lead-related ordinances. He supports a Toledo ordinance that requires rental properties to undergo inspections and to do needed cleaning and repairs.

“Somebody needs to do something because we have children who are being leadpoisoned,” he said. “We’re using our kids as lead detectors and that’s not the way it should be.”