Fight heats up to stop Toledo children from being poisoned by lead

By David Murray, TCC Web Editor

THURSDAY, Dec. 15, 2022–Anyone concerned about the ongoing lead poisoning of Toledo’s children needs to attend a public hearing before Toledo City Council at 3 p.m. on Dec. 22. The hearing has been called to review yet another lead poisoning prevention law City Council is considering. The meeting will be held in City Council Chambers on the first floor of One Government Center, at Jackson and Erie streets downtown.

“We need to be down there in numbers to make sure City Council does not put this back in committee,” Juanita Greene, a member of the Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition told the monthly meeting earlier this week of the Toledo Community Coalition at First Church of God. “Our children are being poisoned all over the city.”

“Call your council people and let them know your feelings,” Ms. Greene implored the people at the meeting. The Toledo Community Coalition, which Ms. Greene helped establish, is made up of African-American clergy in Toledo and other urban and minority advocates and activists.

A fact sheet from the Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition states “Lead poisoning is a crisis in Toledo. Studies in Toledo uncover that, in some elementary school, more than 70% of children suffer from lead poisoning….Poisoning occurs most commonly in single-family and duplex rental properties,” caused by deteriorating paint in homes built before 1978 before federal regulations disallowed lead in paint.

Ms. Greene said that recent testing in Toledo elementary schools show a rise in lead poisoning among Toledo children. She said 70% of the children tested at Leverette Elementary School, 445 East Manhattan Blvd., were found to be lead poisoned.

George Thomas, vice chairman and general counsel of Toledo’s Fair Housing Center, said at the Toledo Community Coalition meeting that it is important that as many citizens as possible show up at the City Council meeting on Dec. 22 to show council members that the public supports stricter regulations on landlords who rent lead-contaminated homes and apartments. Mr. Thomas, a member of the Lead Coalition and the Community Coalition said recent testing has confirmed that lead poisoning of children in Toledo is much more pervasive and widespread than originally thought.

Mr. Thomas said testing in “majority” white parts of the city is uncovering lead poisoning in those neighborhoods as well as in “minority” black neighborhoods. “All parts of the city built before 1978 have lead in it. In neighborhoods like Old Orchard there is less lead contamination because people can afford to keep up their homes vs. in North Toledo, which has had disinvestment and the housing has not been maintained and lead paint is affecting to a greater extent children in those homes and in those neighborhoods.”

“It’s really important for people to show up at next week’s meeting to support ending lead poisoning, even if they don’t know all the facts,” Mr. Thomas said.

Toledo City Council first approved a Lead Poisoning Prevention Ordinance (a city law) in the summer of 2016 requiring landlords of 1 to 4 rental unit properties to inspect and remove lead paint from the homes and apartments they were renting. But the law, and subsequent versions of it, have never been implemented or enforced because of a series of lawsuits by Toledo landlords filed against the city. The current ordinance before Toledo City Council is also opposed by landlords. That ordinance is the subject of the public hearing on Dec. 22.

Contact David Murray at davidmmurray1954@gmail.com.