The lead-poison threat

Relatively few homes are being made lead-safe, despite years of efforts

Some of the oldest housing stock in the country is in Iowa, including Davenport. (Photo: Ed Tibbetts)

A year ago, the journal JAMA Pediatrics published an article with a startling statistic: 76% of Iowa kids under the age of 6 had detectable levels of lead in their blood. The study said the state of Iowa ranked fourth highest in the nation.

Iowa has long been at risk for lead poisoning because of its older housing stock and the lead-based paint that was used in the past to coat windows, walls and doors.

In Davenport, a local study estimated 5,000 homes were at high risk for lead-based paint in three wards located mostly in the older parts of the city, according to a 2017 article in the Quad-City Times.

Yet, in the years since, relatively few of those homes have been made lead-safe, even though local government and health care officials subsequently called for a sustained community effort to fight the problem.

Lead is a toxin, and medical experts say there is no level in the blood that is safe for children.

“Even low levels of lead in blood can cause developmental delays, difficulty learning, behavioral issues, and neurological damage. The effects of lead poisoning can be permanent and disabling,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Not surprisingly, poor, immigrant and minority children who live in older housing are at greatest risk, according to the JAMA Pediatrics article, which studied the problem nationwide.

The federal government banned lead-based paint in 1978, but it still exists in many of Iowa’s older homes, flaking and chipping, creating a danger for young and unsuspecting hands and mouths. Dust from the old paint also is a danger.

The study in Scott County was conducted through a partnership between Augustana College and the Scott County Health Department, and those 5,000 homes at high-risk for lead paint were in Davenport’s 3rd, 4th and 5th wards.

It is estimated there are more than 40,000 homes in Scott County built before 1978.

However, the City of Davenport has made just 35 homes lead safe over the last three fiscal years (2020-2022), according to city figures provided to me in October.

Meanwhile, Live Lead Free Quad-Cities, a non-profit created in 2018 to tackle the problem, had only made 7 homes lead-safe since 2019, Scott County Supervisor Tony Knobbe, president of the group, told me in an interview in October.

Live Lead Free Quad-Cities includes several local governments, including the City of Davenport and Scott County, as well as the area’s two largest health care organizations, Genesis Health System and UnityPoint Trinity.

In addition to the 7 homes, another 15 were in various stages of work, Knobbe said.

This isn’t what local officials anticipated when they formed the organization.

“We certainly all would have expected higher numbers by now than that,” Knobbe said.

Obstacles impede lead work

The pandemic clearly has hobbled the effort.

Officials in the Quad-Cities and in other areas say that people were reluctant to let anybody into their homes.

Also, it’s been difficult to find state-certified contractors to do the work.

The Des Moines Register reported recently that between 2018 and 2022, the number of “lead-safe renovators” in Iowa dropped from 1,966 to 1,417.

Home improvement projects also grew during the pandemic, making it even more difficult to get contractors.

Officials in the Illinois Quad-Cities echoed those concerns.

A coalition that includes the cities of Moline, East Moline, Rock Island and Silvis was awarded a U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant of more than $2 million a few years ago to mitigate lead paint hazards in homes. However, supply chain problems and contractor shortages have complicated matters, said KJ Whitley, community development manager in Moline.

“We need more contractors,” she said.

So far, the coalition had made 58 homes lead safe, as of Sept. 30, she said.

Still, thousands of homes at risk for lead-based paint remain in the Quad-Cities, and hundreds of kids are testing positive for lead.

In 2021, more than 700 children in Davenport under the age of 6 tested positive for confirmed levels of lead in their blood, according to the state of Iowa, which maintains a web site showing results for the state’s 10 largest cities. Lead testing in school children is required by Iowa law.

Sixty-three kids in Davenport had confirmed lead levels between 3.5 micrograms per deciliter and 10 micrograms per deciliter. A level of 3.5 micrograms — the blood lead reference value — represents the top 2.5% of blood lead levels in kids ages 1 to 5 years old.

At 10 micrograms, the state and local health departments take more significant action than they do when lead levels are lower. Nine children in Davenport had confirmed lead levels at or above 10 micrograms per deciliter in 2021.

There were 656 confirmed cases of kids under 6 with some level of lead in their blood less than 3.5 micrograms per deciliter.

Knobbe said that the Live Lead Free Quad-Cities coalition intends to hire a part-time person to interact with the contractor community to increase the amount of work to be done. Then, he said, the organization will seek out more work and promote the effort in the community.

But while finding more contractors is an immediate problem, securing more funds also will surely be a challenge if a substantive number of homes are to be made lead safe.

Finding the money

Live Lead Free Quad-Cities got started with $225,000, with Scott County providing $175,000 and the Scott County Regional Authority another $50,000.

The non-profit has spent $77,000 thus far. (The county set aside another $100,000 for fiscal year 2023.)

Though the amount varies, experts say it often costs between $10,000 and $20,000 to make just one home lead safe. So, even tackling 50 homes a year could cost at least $500,000, and possibly $1 million.

In other words, with thousands of homes at risk, there still is a lot of work to be done.

Where will the funding come from?

Knobbe said funds could come from local governments and the non-profit sector.

In the past, the City of Davenport used a federal Housing and Urban Development grant to fight the problem.

HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Grant Program is a major source of funding for cities and agencies across the country in easing lead paint hazards. The program seeks to target lead hazard control efforts in housing units with young children that are in older neighborhoods, which it notes typically involve low-income and minority populations.

However, it’s been a decade since any of that grant funding has landed in the Iowa Quad-Cities.

In 2007, the City of Davenport got a multi-year $2.3 million HUD grant to make 234 housing units lead safe.

After that, it went back to the federal government for more, and in 2011, got another $2.5 million grant, this time with the intent to make lead safe about 200 housing units.

The city ran into problems, though, and only spent about $900,000.

HUD criticized Davenport, calling its performance "seriously lacking," and the city eventually returned $1.5 million.

At the time, city officials said administering the grant was too difficult, HUD had burdensome requirements and that staff turnover at the city was a problem, too.

Davenport still remediates lead in homes, but with a different pot of federal money – and in fewer numbers than it once did. It also invests less money.

Over the last three years, from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2022, Davenport spent about $313,000 on lead remediation, according to city figures.

The city uses Community Development Block Grant funding to pay for the work.

Bruce Berger, director of the City of Davenport’s community planning and economic development department, said lead work is done in conjunction with other rehabilitation work in homes.

Berger said past city attempts to specifically draw interest from people to remediate lead-based paint hazards drew little response from the public. “So, we decided to not market it separately anymore,” he said.

Although it’s been discussed the past, neither Live Lead Free Quad-Cities nor the City of Davenport appear to be considering seeking another lead hazard reduction grant from HUD.

Berger notes there are a lot of homes throughout the Quad-Cities with lead present, but he said the challenge is finding a large enough source of funding that doesn’t have the strings and restrictions that make it difficult for people to qualify. So, the city uses its available funding to chip away at the problem.

“A larger grant like the lead hazard control money that is out there, there’s low hanging fruit you can address with it, but then it gets kind of problematic to address all the other properties, with the restrictions,” he said.

HUD funds helping other communities

Some nearby communities in Iowa and Illinois are tapping into HUD’s lead hazard reduction grant program, as are other places.

In September, HUD awarded $125 million to 26 communities and agencies nationwide.

One of those organizations is the East Central Intergovernmental Association, or ECIA, an Iowa-based group that was awarded about $4.2 million in September to make 120 housing units leads-safe over two years. The association provides services for communities in Cedar, Clinton, Delaware, Jackson and Dubuque counties. Its lead work typically involves eliminating dangers present on a home’s windows, doors, trim, baseboards, ceilings and the like.

“All of the hazards are taken care of,” said Kim Glaser, community development coordinator for the association.

The program accepts applicants who live in a home that was built prior to 1978. They also must earn less than 80% of the median family income for the county and have a child under the age of 6 who lives there or visits regularly.

Glaser said the pandemic had a “significant negative impact” on its ability to do lead work, although she added that is now changing.

Over the past two and a half years, the association made 60 housing units in Delaware and Dubuque counties lead-safe using a previous HUD grant.

Unlike in the Quad-Cities, Glaser said the association has not had a problem with contractor availability. It maintains a pool of contractors and also has a person on staff who works with them.

She is bullish on the impact these federal grants can have, saying the results are well documented.

“There’s definitely a decrease in children’s elevated blood lead levels,” Glaser said. “You can prove this is working.”

“I wish all counties in Iowa could experience it,” she said.

Glaser said that, like Davenport found, the grants are difficult to administer. However, other local governments are using this source of funds to deal with lead dangers. And, Glaser adds, grantees are always willing to help other communities.

“Just reach out and ask,” she advises. “I think HUD, in general, is looking for new grantees also. They want these cities to get the funds.”

There is a definite need to mitigate the dangers of lead in Iowa.

The JAMA Pediatrics study said that the prevalence of detectable blood levels in Iowa kids was far above the national average. In Iowa, it was 76% for kids under the age of 6; nationwide, it was about 51%. The study matched blood samples from 1.1 million kids, conducted by Quest Diagnostics, with data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Nebraska, Missouri and Michigan were the only states that had a higher percentage than Iowa of kids with detectable lead levels in their blood, according to the study, which was done between 2018 and 2020.

Acquiring the funds, finding the contractors, ensuring they're trained, and then finding the lead dangers and making homes lead-safe all are challenges. And people who work in this field say there are far more houses that need to be addressed.

Still, at the end of the day, Glaser said, it’s important to remember who is benefitting from the work: Iowa’s children.

“The top priority is always the health and safety of our children. It does make a significant impact in a child’s life to be able to live in a home and environment that’s healthier and safer,” Glaser said. “It’s definitely proven to make a difference.”