Buffalo News Editorial Board | July 17, 2024

Safe housing should be at the top of any city government’s priority list. Families in New York State rental properties have the legal right to expect an environment free of toxic lead paint and other threats. Regular inspections of rental housing would find such deadly hazards, but though they are required by law, these inspections are not being effectively carried out in Buffalo.

That’s why a coalition of local community groups and individual residents have taken to the courts to compel the city to fully implement its Proactive Rental Inspections Law, enacted in 2020.

Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo and the Center for Elder Law and Justice — as well as four city residents — are the petitioners in the suit. “We’re not asking for anything new. Just for the city of Buffalo to live up to its own stated standards,” said Steven Haagsma, of Housing Opportunities Made Equal.

Whatever becomes of the lawsuit, the city should not need to be compelled to carry out the PRI program. It should be aggressively inspecting rental properties for health and safety hazards, full stop — without any prodding.

This is not only about lead paint. The inspections are also meant to target foundation and roof problems, inactive smoke detectors, window deterioration, unsafe stairs, buckling ceilings, leaky plumbing and electrical problems.

But lead paint is very much at the forefront. Since at least the early 1990s, Buffalo has ranked among the nation’s worst cities for childhood lead poisoning – a function of its aging housing stock and concentrated, segregated poverty.

With 93% of homes in Buffalo built before 1978 – the year lead paint was banned – lead hazards are common. They are also preventable and programs are available to help with remediation costs. However, the lead has to be detected first. While the Erie County Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program is responsible for the case management of lead poisoned children in Erie County, county officials inspect buildings after children have tested positive for high levels of lead in their blood. Preventative inspecting of buildings for lead and many other unhealthy dangers — including rodent infestations and unusable plumbing — is the mission of the city’s proactive inspections policy.

It’s called proactive for a reason. The idea is to find lead before a child is poisoned.

Earlier this year, the News’ Deidre Williams reported that, according to Buffalo’s permits and inspections commissioner Catherine Amdur, the inspection program lacked the funding to be sustainable and the PRI ordinance should be revised. Since then, however, as Williams reported on July 11, the city has doubled the rental registry fees paid by landlords specifically to raise money for the PRI program.

Now we have both halves of the puzzle: First, a PRI law unanimously adopted by the Common Council in 2020 that requires the interior and exterior inspection of 36,000 rental units every three years; and second, increased rental registry fees that, according to Amdur, could help pay for an estimated 20 additional inspectors to help get the job done.

And let’s not forget, Buffalo rents are not low: Zillow data shows that average rents in Buffalo went up $371 between December 2018 and 2023.

Thus far, the City of Buffalo has not even begun to approach the initial PRI goal of 36,000 units every three years. Since 2020, there have been fewer than 5,000 rental properties inspected and fewer than 500 certificates of compliance issued.

It doesn’t take a lawsuit to highlight this level of inadequacy. The poor conditions of many Buffalo rental properties have been well publicized by The News and other local media.

Buffalo’s PRI program needs to get revved up and start fulfilling the promises it made when it became law in 2020.