New federal regulations are bogging down the city’s efforts to help rehabilitate many of Lawrence’s older homes

“It’s significantly impacted our business,” said Neighborhood Resources Director Victor Torres. “It’s almost ground our rehab program to a halt.”

Jack Rose, a board member of Hearthstone, an alcohol recovery group home for men, 745 Ohio, says the home will get its bathroom renovated this spring using federal grant money provided through the city. Some of those areas in the old house contain lead paint, and federal regulations now require the city to abate the problem.

Here’s one example:

The bathroom, pantry and kitchen all need renovating at Hearthstone, 745 Ohio, a group home for men recovering from alcohol addiction. The city has set aside $24,000 from a federal grant to make the repairs.

But the money may not stretch far enough. Some areas in the old house contain lead paint. Federal regulations now require the city to “abate” the lead problem. After that is done, little money may be left for other repairs.

“It may happen that the only thing we can do is renovation of the bathroom,” said Tim Pinnick, a project specialist for the city’s Neighborhood Resources Department. “We’re looking at up to one-quarter of the project (cost) going for lead reduction.”

Jack Rose, a member of Hearthstone’s board of directors, said the home would comply with the regulations.

“Whatever the rule is, we’re going to follow it,” he said. “I wish it was the other way, but that’s the way it is.”

Lead-reduction regulations, officials say, have increasingly muddled the city’s efforts to help nonprofit agencies such as Hearthstone and to rehabilitate houses owned by low- to moderate-income Lawrence residents.

Now, Torres said, his department is looking at ways to get that business going again.

Old houses

Despite the problems, there are reasons for the regulations.

“It’s trying to keep people safe,” said Bob Ebey, a member of the Neighborhood Resources Advisory Committee.

Lead paint was used in many houses and buildings before 1978. Researchers later discovered excessive exposure to lead could cause brain damage, stunt a child’s growth and cause other health problems.

Congress in 1992 required that buyers and renters of pre-1978 homes be given information about the possibilities of lead hazards. But newer regulations, which went into effect in September 2000, required that federally funded programs in older homes and buildings be assessed for a lead risk and that the risk be reduced where possible.

That’s where the problems start.

Margene Swarts, the city’s community development manager, said the assessment typically was an “eyeball” examination for chipped, cracking or peeling paint. More in-depth examinations are done, she said, where children spend time (such as at daycare centers funded by the rehab grants) and in projects like Hearthstone’s, where the paint will be disturbed.

Swarts said the city offered to pay for voluntary testing at the nonprofit agencies, at a cost of $500 each. Women’s Transitional Care Services came back clean; the Achievement Place for Boys and First Step House had “minor” lead problems.

No other testing has been done. Achievement Place for Girls, Swarts said, withdrew its application rather than undergo the assessment.

Sally Howard, a board member for Achievement Place for Girls, said the home for troubled teen girls in the 600 block of Tennessee has passed all health inspections. Without a guarantee of money to remedy the situation, she said, lead testing promised more problems than solutions.

“I have no idea whether there’s lead paint,” she said. “The lead paint issue has never been raised to us by KDHE. We didn’t want to venture into an area they haven’t expressed concern about.”

Housing program

The problem is trickier in the city’s Comprehensive Rehabilitation Program. The program uses federal funds to loan as much as $25,000 to low- to moderate-income homeowners, which they can pay back at the rate of $50 a month.

The lead rules require homeowners to disclose the presence of lead when selling or renting their houses, however. In Lawrence, Torres said, homeowners apparently have decided the possible cost of fixing or disclosing a lead problem outweighs the benefits of a rehabilitation loan that might not cover the complete expense of lead abatement.

About a dozen homeowners get the loans each year, Swarts said, but last year applications dropped to less than half that number. Two applicants started the program, then withdrew before testing.

Pinnick dealt with one of the applicants.

“With the value of the home, and the estimated cost of remedy, the applicant chose not to continue,” Pinnick said. “The cost of rehab would’ve been more than the value of the home.”

Solutions

Lawrence isn’t the only city dealing with the issue, Swarts said, but every city handles it differently.

“Some communities are walking away; if there’s a lead problem, they won’t help,” she said.

Officials will try a different route, she said, after consultations with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Lawrence City Commission will be asked March 12 to approve an increase in the rehabilitation program’s loan limit from $25,000 to $35,000.

That ought to cover most lead-abatement projects, Torres hopes, and start bringing homeowners back into the program.

“We can do a lot of work for a lot of people in Lawrence if we can take care of that lead component,” he said.

Pinnick said homeowners may not have that much to fear.

“We’re finding with the assessments that we have done, lead is not proving to be as big a problem as we thought,” he said. “Just because it’s a 1940s house or a 1950s house doesn’t mean you have a problem.”