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Indiana Lead-Safe & Healthy Homes Newsletter
October 2004 Edition
Improving Kids’ Environment (IKE) and the Indiana Lead-Safe Task Force publish this newsletter every two or three months at no charge for anyone interested in issues and events involving lead poisoning prevention and healthy homes in Indiana. Distribution is by email or fax – preferably by e-mail. Contact the editor, Tom Neltner, at mccabe@ikecoalition.org or 317-442-3973 if you want to contribute articles, edit the draft newsletter, have an article to contribute, or want to get on or off the distribution list. All editions are available on IKE’s web page at http://www.ikecoalition.org/publications.htm.
State Rep. Bill Crawford to Speak at Conference
State Representative Bill Crawford has long been one of the General Assembly’s most forceful advocates for affordable, safe and healthy housing in Indiana. He introduced the original lead licensing legislation in the mid-1990s.
As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, he is responsible for writing the initial budget for the state. He has been careful to support housing and education. As current chair of the Joint Select Commission on Medicaid Oversight, he pushed Medicaid’s poor performance on lead poisoning prevention to the forefront. The spotlight brought results. See related story below. For more information on Rep. Crawford.
Rep. Crawford will be speaking at the Indiana Lead-Safe and Healthy Homes Conference on Wednesday, November 10 just after lunch. Please join us. It is not too late. Go to www.ikecoalition.org and sign up or simply email Tom Neltner your contact information by mccabe@ikecoalition.org.
Indiana Shutout of $168 Million of HUD Grants
In June, a record seven Indiana organizations applies for HUD Healthy Homes and Lead Safety grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Two other organizations partnered with the Alliance for Healthy Homes.
On September 27, HUD announced that 74 organizations in 28 states received more than $168 million. Indiana was shutout. The Alliance for Healthy Homes was shutout. Even the National Center for Healthy Housing was shutout.
IKE’s Tom Neltner was shocked. While IKE was not an applicant, these grants were essential for Indiana to achieve Indiana’s Lead Elimination Plan that was recently approved by CDC. Hundreds of children would continue to be lead poisoned.
He expected that at least a few of the applications would be approved. To his surprise, he found that AIMCO, a Denver Colorado landlord, received almost $2 million. AIMCO is one of the country’s largest property management firms. Two years ago, HUD, DOJ, and EPA fined AIMCO $129,580 for failing to warn tenants that their homes may contain lead-based paint hazards, as federal law requires. The largest penalty ever imposed. The resulting settlement agreement required AIMCO to make all of its 130,000 apartments lead-safe and train all current and future employees in lead-safe work practices. Subsequently, AIMCO’s delinquency in complying with the terms of the consent agreement caused extra penalties. On May 12, 2004, HUD’s Inspector General cited a corporation controlled by AIMCO for inappropriately using $409,388 in federal funds.
Tom Neltner investigated. He quickly learned that HUD had dramatically revised the grant review process. Instead of having the applications reviewed by federal staff with intimate knowledge of the program as had been done in past years, HUD outsourced the initial grant review to a contractor. The appropriate procedure in these circumstances would have the contractor review last year’s grants to compare recommendations before releasing the contractor to review the new round.
While the facts are still vague, it appears that many of the reviewers hired by the contractor were not qualified, and that HUD failed to train many of the contract reviewers in how to evaluate the applications. Reportedly, many of the contractor evaluations were superficial providing only sketchy conclusions about applications strengths and weaknesses. The contractor apparently advertised for reviewers through Monster.com. To make matters worse, it appears that many grant applications were never reviewed by two HUD employees on a review panel as required by HUD guidance.
If these problems are duly confirmed, then HUD has sorely failed its stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars and failed its responsibility to make grant awards based on a thorough and competent review that reflects their merit.
The Indiana organizations applying for the grants are as follows:
Organization Grant Category Amount Requested
Community Action of Evansville Lead Hazard Outreach $0.249 million
City of Fort Wayne Lead Hazard Control $3 million
City of Gary Lead Hazard Control $3 million
City of Terre Haute Lead Hazard Outreach $0.378 million
Marion County Health Dept. Lead Demonstration $3.5 million
The Villages (non-profit) LEAP $2 million
The Villages (non-profit) Lead Hazard Outreach $0.5 million
Tom Neltner sent letters to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Congresswoman Carson on October 5. Senator Lugar immediately sent a letter to HUD demanding a response. Senator Bayh and Congresswoman Carson said they would investigate. WISH-TV covered the story first. Click here for the WISH-TV story, the letter to Senator Lugar and Senator Lugar’s letter to HUD.
Hopefully, HUD will correct its error and reevaluate the grant applications.
The problems with the grants were serious enough to prompt the Alliance for Healthy Homes to act as well. On 10-12-04, the Alliance for Healthy Homes requested HUD’s Inspector General to investigate the process used by the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control in reviewing, evaluating, ranking, and awarding the grants. The Alliance’s request to the HUD Inspector General is available on-line at www.afhh.org/aa/aa_policy_federal_agencies_request_for_IG_Invest.pdf. Contact Brian Gumm at bgumm@afhh.org or 202-543-1147 for more information.
IN Medicaid and ISDH Reach Agreement on Case Management
It appears that Indiana Medicaid is on a path to fix the serious problems in meeting the federal mandates to protect children on Medicaid from lead poisoning. Local health departments will be reimbursed for 50% of their actual expenses to provide case management and environmental investigation services to children with elevated blood lead levels. For example, if the case manager spends 100% of his or her time managing Medicaid children who are lead poisoned, the department will be reimbursed for 50% of the salary.
The arrangement is better if the case manager is a nurse, the reimbursement may be 75%.
ISDH will manage the claims and the paperwork. ISDH and Indiana Medicaid maintain that the approach may be better than “full” reimbursement under Medicaid using a formula. The approach must be approved by the federal Center for Medicaid Services (CMS).
ISDH and Indiana Medicaid will lead a discussion at one session at the Conference on November 9 on the approach and take feedback on refinements to make it work better for all. If you provide case management or environmental investigation (risk assessment) services for children on Medicaid, you need to be there!
IN Medicaid to Measure MCOs Performance on Lead Poisoning Prevention
Indiana Medicaid agreed to develop a Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS)-like measure to assess the performance of managed care organizations (MCOs) for blood lead screening. The plan is to roll out the measure as a test measure in the 2005 HEDIS process (measuring 2004 data). By the fall of 2005, OMPP will understand the validity of the measure and will refine and re‑test, if needed.
OMPP plans to include the measure as part of its MCO‑incentives strategy in the second half of the upcoming MCO contract period. The results will also be available to families selecting MCOs as well as the public.
IKE Asks IDEM to Clean-Up Homes that Poisoned More Than Once
On October 4, IKE’s Tom Neltner sent IDEM’s Commissioner Lori Kaplan a letter asking her to order the cleanup of 1300 homes that ISDH has identified as having poisoned two or more children at different times since 1993. The vast majority of lead poisonings in older buildings like these – probably as high as 90% by ISDH’s estimates – are caused by deteriorated lead-based paint, lead dust, and lead-contaminated soil at these buildings. IKE also asked that Commissioner Kaplan take immediate action on a particularly dangerous property in Terre Haute. Click here for a copy of the letter.
Outside of Marion County, there is no evidence that the lead hazards in these buildings were eliminated. They very likely may be continuing to poison children. Only in Marion County have these lead hazards probably been reduced. Marion County Health Department regularly issues clean-up orders whenever its inspectors find lead hazards, especially when investigating a lead poisoned child.
Pursuant to IC 13-14-10-2(a), IDEM has an obligation to act when it receives evidence that a pollution source presents an imminent and substantial endangerment to the health of people. In the case of the 1300 buildings plus the Terre Haute building, children already have been endangered: they have suffered permanent brain damage from lead poisoning. Please act to protect children that may be living in these properties. . IKE asked Commissioner Kaplan to act to protect children that may be living in these properties. State and federal law allow ISDH to disclose the addresses of the properties to IDEM can act.
IC 13-14-10-2(b) states what IDEM must do with this evidence. It states that IDEM shall bring suit on behalf of the state in the appropriate court to (1) immediately restrain any person causing or contributing to the alleged pollution to stop the discharge or introduction of contaminants causing or contributing to the pollution; or (2) take other necessary action.
IKE asked that if IDEM is unwilling to order a clean-up of the lead hazards, at a minimum, it needs to order that the owner not allow anyone to live there until the lead hazards are eliminated. If IDEM does not act in a timely manner, IKE will seriously consider filing a citizen suit pursuant to Section 7002 of RCRA (42 U.S.C. § 6972).
Rental Housing Quality Meetings in Indianapolis on November 22
Indianapolis’s City-County Council will hold a public hearing on November 22 in the Council’s Chambers at 5:30 pm to hear concerns about the quality of rental housing. Based on the comments, the Metropolitan Development Committee will consider its next steps. Please plan on attending and voicing your opinion. Thanks to the leadership of Council President Rozelle Boyd and Metropolitan Development Committee Chair Steve Talley for agreeing to hold the meeting.
Landlords Respond to Lead Hazard Repair Order in Indianapolis in a Variety of Ways
There are good landlords. There are bad landlords. Some respond to concerns. Others strike a less cooperative pose when confronted with a problem. Of the largest landlords specializing in old property in Indianapolis, Van Rooy Properties and Stallard & Associates take cooperative approach. If there is a problem, they fix it. If there is a complaint, they respond.
Apparently, Zender Family Limited Partnership (Zender) is less cooperative. In August, MCHD issued orders to repair the lead hazards it found on Zender’s property. MCHD found the lead hazards when investigating a complaint. They entered the common area and knocked on the doors of tenants. When the inspectors tried to arrange for a follow-up inspection to make sure the repairs were made, Zender stalled. MCHD sent Zender a letter asking for cooperation before agreeing to pursue a court order. Zender’s attorney’s responded by threatening to sue MCHD with trespass and civil rights violations. IKE found the letters in response to a public records request. The letters are attached.
Another landlord, Fon-Roy Investor, ordered MCHD inspectors off the property while inspecting another complaint. The inspectors had already identified serious lead hazards. Fon-Roy claimed that lead hazards were not a problem since children were not allowed on the property. The property did not appear to be exempt from the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination against renting to children.
Fort Wayne Newspaper Covers Lead Poisoning Fair Housing Act Complaint
As reported in the September edition of this newsletter, a local tenant in Fort Wayne filed a Fair Housing Act complaint against his family’s landlord. The landlord refused to make a reasonable accommodation of eliminating lead hazards that would aggravate a child’s learning disabilities. The disabilities most likely stemmed from the lead hazards.
On Sunday, October 3, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette covered the issue and provided essential background on the situation. Check out the story.
- Lead-Safe Indiana Task Force Meeting in Indy. All are welcome to attend these meetings to discuss lead poisoning and healthy homes issues across Indiana. It is a great networking and planning opportunity. Contact Tom Neltner at mccabe@ikecoalition.org or at 317-442-3973 for details.
o Tuesday, December 7 – 10:30 to 1:30 at Environmental Management Institute.
o November 9 to 10 – Indy. 4th Annual Indiana Lead-Safe and Healthy Homes Conference at the Marten House in Indianapolis. Contact Tom Neltner for details. See article at beginning of newsletter.
- EPAC Housing Committee - Tuesday, December 7 – 1:30 to 3:30 at Environmental Management Institute immediately after the Task Force meeting.
- Training
o Free EPA & HUD-Approved Lead Safe Work Practices Course. Contact Masimax at 866-232-5419 or on-line at www.leadsafetraining.org.
- October 28, 2004 in Springfield IL.
o Accredited Lead Training at the Environmental Management Institute in Indy. Contact EMI at 800-488-8842 or www.envtlmgmt.org.
o Lead Abatement Worker Initial – Oct. 26 to 27
o Lead Abatement Worker Refresher – October 28
o Inspector Refresher – Dec. 7
o Risk Assessor Refresher – Dec. 8
o Lead Abatement Supervisor Refresher – Dec. 9
Thanks for improving kids' environment! If you have any questions or comments about this newsletter, IKE, or the Indiana Lead-Safe Task Force, contact Tom Neltner at mccabe@ikecoalition.org, 317-442-3973 or 5244 Carrollton Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46202-3181. If you need more information on national events, check out the Alliance Alert Newsletter at www.afhh.org and click on newsletter.
IKE publishes two additional newsletters on a quarterly basis. Contact Tom Neltner at mccabe@ikecoalition.org if you want to subscribe to either of those newsletters.
“Sewage in Our Streams” newsletter on behalf of the Indiana Clean Water Coalition. .
“Improving Kids’ Environment” newsletter. This newsletter deals with all issues and events in which IKE involved.