FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OCTOBER 7, 2025

CONTACT: 

Shannon Holfoth, sholfoth@gmail.com, 716-913-5071

Community Organizations and Buffalo Residents File Appeal in Lawsuit to Compel the City of Buffalo to Fully Enforce its Proactive Rental Inspections Law

Buffalo, N.Y. – Four local community organizations and four Buffalo residents today filed an appeal in their lawsuit against the City of Buffalo to compel the City to fully implement the Proactive Rental Inspections (PRI) Law. The PRI law, adopted in 2020, requires the inspection of 36,000 rental units to prevent lead-based paint hazards and other unsafe housing conditions, and requires landlords to obtain certificates of rental compliance (CRCs).

“Despite this law being passed, and even celebrated, by former Mayor Byron Brown and the City Council in 2020, the City has failed to carry out these inspections,” said Sarah Wooton, Interim Executive Director, Partnership for the Public Good (PPG). “As a direct result, Buffalo residents continue to suffer in substandard rental housing conditions and children continue to be diagnosed with lead poisoning at alarming rates.”

From 2021 to 2023, 1,262 children in the City of Buffalo were confirmed to have high levels of lead in their blood. Most children who have elevated blood lead levels live in single and double-unit rentals — the same units that are supposed to be inspected under this law.

Attorneys from the law firm Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford LLC, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and the WNY Law Center filed the original lawsuit on July 10, 2024, on behalf of PPG, PUSH Buffalo, Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) and the Center for Elder Law and Justice, along with four city residents exposed to substandard housing conditions.

In January 2025, State Supreme Court Justice Michael Siragusa granted the City’s motion to dismiss the case citing a narrow interpretation of the court’s authority. The justice’s decision did not say the City adequately implemented the law, rather, he deferred to the City’s and its Department of Permit and Inspection Services’ discretion. This decision unjustly allows properties to be rented without inspection, in direct violation of the law.

“This law requires the City to conduct inspections proactively because the City recognized that, as the then-Mayor himself declared, tenants cannot depend on landlords when it comes to dealing with lead contamination and other health-harming housing conditions,” said Matthew Parham, Director of Litigation and Advocacy, WNY Law Center. “The City was able to have this case dismissed by arguing that the law does not really require them to conduct inspections but only suggests that they do so, and that it is really landlords and not the City who are responsible for protecting tenants from substandard conditions. But that is the opposite of what they said when they passed the law. The City also argued that the Green Amendment, which 70% of New York voters added to the Constitution in 2021 to guarantee the right to clean air and water and a healthful environment, is a dead letter with no force and effect. The City's positions in this case are not only wrong, which is why we expect them to be reversed on appeal, but they do a real disservice to Buffalo residents and insult the 85% of Buffalo voters who supported the Green Amendment.”

The PRI law requires that covered rental units must have a certificate of rental compliance. As of March 2025, there were 1,434 CRCs issued (about 4% of covered units). Based on the rate of inspections in 2024 and part of 2025, it will take 11 years to complete the basic safety checks that are supposed to happen before the properties can be lawfully rented.

If the City enforced the law, the resident plaintiffs who joined the lawsuit would not be subjected to living in harmful housing conditions.

“Renters in Buffalo deserve the same safeguards as homeowners: to live in safe, sustainable, affordable housing that won’t hurt their families, that won’t poison their children with lead and other contaminants, that won’t force them to endure intolerable weather without heat or proper insulation,” said Dawn Wells-Clyburn, Executive Director, PUSH Buffalo. “Our homes should not hurt us. And yet, thanks to the city’s lack of action, too many Buffalo renters are forced to contend with conditions that most homeowners and landlords wouldn’t put up with. Our neighbors are sick and tired. They deserve better; the city owes them that respect.”

The eight plaintiffs are not alone in calling for this law to be implemented. On February 13, 2024, 39 community organizations sent a letter to the City with this same demand. On July 1, 2024, 80 local physicians and pediatricians, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics New York State Chapter 1, sent their own letter to then-Mayor Byron Brown urging the same.

“Buffalo has one of the highest lead poisoning rates in the nation,” said Carmela Huang, Senior Attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. “Hundreds of children will suffer the irreversible consequences of lead poisoning every year until the PRI law is properly enforced to provide clean air, water, and a healthy environment for residents. We will continue to hold the City accountable for their failures to do so.”

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Data source for below graphs: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), “The number of children who were newly confirmed (defined as 5 mcg/dL or above) in Erie County and selected Zip code areas during year 2020-2023),” September 4, 2024, accessed via FOIL request.