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By Farrah Anderson, Wisconsin Watch
This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch.
Deanna Branch thought she found the perfect home to rent on Milwaukee’s North Side: a two-story house with a balcony near her sons’ school, two grocery stores and a park.
Perfect until severe lead poisoning in 2015 sent Branch’s then-2-year-old son Aidan to Children’s Wisconsin hospital.
Her landlord replaced the home’s lead-painted windows but didn’t address remaining hazards, Branch said. After Aidan returned to the hospital three years later, state Child Protective Services said Aidan couldn’t leave unless she could provide a lead-free home, she recalled.
She broke her lease and immediately moved in with family and later lived at a shelter.
Her rental company management, Ogden and Company, Inc., sued Branch and garnished her mother’s wages for years, since she had co-signed on the lease, she said. The situation hardly seemed fair.
“I broke my lease, but you almost killed my son,” Branch said of her landlord. “So I figured we will be a little bit even.”
Branch has since become an advocate for parents facing lead hazards, even spotlighting the issue as a guest during President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address.
But her experience remains common in Milwaukee. More than half of city households rent — the highest percentage in the Midwest — and an estimated 200,000 aging housing units likely have paint made with lead, a neurotoxin that damages the brain and nervous system, especially in young children.
Through its News414 collaboration, Wisconsin Watch also spoke to Dennise Honegger, who moved between four lead-tainted Milwaukee-area rentals between 2017 and 2023, leading to hospital stays for her daughter and grandson, scrutiny from Child Protective Services and months of homelessness before finally finding a lead-free home.
Homeowners can make their properties safer by removing lead paint, dust or water pipelines, and some government programs subsidize that process. But renters, whose children disproportionately face lead risks, rely on landlords to take action. Landlords see few incentives to renovate on their own, and Milwaukee regulators — limited by a lack of funds and a state law that capped inspection fees on landlords — provide little oversight over lead-tainted rentals.
That reality reinforces deep racial and socioeconomic disparities in one of the nation’s most segregated cities.
Branch is co-founder of the Coalition on Lead Emergency, which educates renters about lead hazards and advocates for more oversight. The group hears from many families who struggle to respond after their children were poisoned in rentals, said Richard Diaz, another coalition co-founder.
Few tenants feel comfortable complaining about unaddressed lead hazards, and some who do may risk retaliation — whether through rent hikes or eviction, particularly in Milwaukee’s most lead-impacted neighborhoods, he said.
“You hear the same story, just time and time again,” Diaz said. “Kids lead poisoned, landlord doesn’t care, they get evicted.”
Little impact from year-old ordinance
The Milwaukee Common Council sought to tackle this problem in July 2022, enacting an ordinance designed to prevent landlord retaliation and stiffen penalties for refusal to address detected lead. That included allowing the Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS) to allow tenants to withhold rent when landlords fail to comply.
But DNS received zero rent-withholding referrals during the first year of the ordinance, a spokesperson said.
DNS can refer lead-related complaints to the city health department for enforcement, but the agency says few complaints specifically mention lead. DNS often receives complaints about peeling paint, a common sign of lead hazards. But it has authority only over building codes and not the health codes that deal with lead hazards. So if a child isn’t yet found to be lead poisoned, DNS simply orders landlords to repaint without abating lead.
That risks further contaminating properties if a contractor scrapes away old paint without properly cleaning up, said Michael Mannan, the city health department’s director of home environmental health.
In those cases it’s up to landlords to act in good faith — to recognize they might have lead, test their properties and remediate if need be, DNS Commissioner Erica Roberts said.
The city health department issued just 26 citations to 13 companies or individual landlords for unaddressed lead problems from July 2022 to June 2023, with nine citations against four entities later dropped due to out-of-date inspections, according to public records obtained by Wisconsin Watch.
Four entities were deemed guilty of eight citations due to a failure to show up in court — with each citation carrying an $801 fine. Three entities had six citations dismissed because they responded and received funding for abatement, records show. Two citations against a company were returned as undeliverable.
Landlords sometimes refuse inspectors entry for fear they will find other code violations, Mannan said.
“We know it’s not working,” Mannan said about broad city efforts to rid rentals of lead. “We have to do something.”
Real estate rep: Landlords do their best
To be sure, not all landlords are the same. They include mom-and-pop landlords who “just don’t have the resources to be able to abate properties,” Diaz said. The average cost of lead abatement is about $40,000 per unit, according to the Milwaukee Health Department.
Most landlords try their best to maintain their properties amid challenges with costly repairs and maintenance, said Chris Mokler, director of legislative affairs for the Wisconsin Real Estate Investors Association, which advocates for landlords and property investors.
“They don’t want any children infected. But again, they didn’t paint the property,” he said, arguing that health departments should focus more on incentives than punishments.
Mokler’s group years ago pushed for a statewide low interest loan program for landlords to cover lead abatement costs. The legislation never gained traction.
The state’s Lead-Safe Homes program covers 100% of abatement costs to landlords, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS). It has completed lead abatement in 332 homes statewide — 119 rentals and 213 occupied by owners — since its launch in 2020.
Blood test detects lead poisoning
Like many parents, Branch didn’t learn about lead risks until a test showed her child was poisoned. She didn’t know how to react.
“I just felt like as a mother, I was definitely failing him because I didn’t know the answer,” Branch said.
Federal law requires landlords to inform tenants about lead paint in properties built before 1978. Branch doesn’t recall receiving such information when moving into her rental. Brittany Schoenick, an attorney with Legal Action of Wisconsin who represents renters in court, said she has frequently seen landlords flout the federal disclosure law.
A test through the state’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program showed about 40 micrograms of lead per deciliter in Aidan’s blood, Branch recalled. That was eight times the level the state defines as poisoning: 5 mcg/dL.
Living in an aging North Side Milwaukee rental, Aidan was among Wisconsinites most likely to face lead exposure. In 2022, Wisconsin’s Black children were four times more likely than white children to face lead poisoning, data show.
Childhood lead poisoning rates in Milwaukee and statewide have dipped in recent decades — in line with national trends since lead was phased out in paint and gasoline. But hazards still persist.
The majority of Wisconsin’s lead-poisoned young children live in Milwaukee County, where 4.7% of children under six tested in 2021 had blood lead levels above 5 mcg/dL. That’s compared to 2.8% of the young children tested statewide, according to DHS data. Those are just known cases. Testing decreased during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Testing data from 2018 to 2021 show childhood lead poisoning in some North Side Milwaukee census tracts ranging above 15% or even 20%.
‘Oh my God. I’m going to lose my kids’
Aidan’s initial level was high enough to send him to the hospital, and it seemed to explain his early behavioral issues.
The test also detected lead at twice the threshold for the city health department to require the landlord to fix the hazard (15 mcg/dL), with the city covering the costs.
But after the health department finished its inspection, officials weren’t initially sure where to send their report, Branch recalled: Four landlords had cycled through the property during Branch’s time as a tenant, she said. Milwaukee tenants say they commonly face such challenges in seeking accountability for lead poisoning, particularly with out-of-state landlords.
Branch’s landlord replaced the home’s window, but that didn’t stop Aidan’s exposure.
A 2018 health department test of the home found lead in deteriorating plaster and wood in the bedrooms, pantry, hallway and front porch.
Another blood test detected 50 mcg/dL in Aidan’s blood, sending him back to the hospital. That’s when CPS told Branch that Aidan couldn’t be discharged without a lead-free home, Branch said.
“I thought: ‘Oh my God. I’m going to lose my kids. I’m a terrible mother,” Branch recalled. “The people who were supposed to be helping me provide a safe place for my son — it felt like they were against me. They were blaming me for what happened to my son.”
Gina Paige, a Wisconsin Department of Children and Families spokesperson, said her agency does not track how often lead poisoning prompts CPS involvement. In such situations, the agency says, CPS may work with local health departments to aid families.
Medical professionals say it’s critical to immediately remove children from lead sources. But the waitlist for abatement is about a year long, Mannan said. In most cases, the local health department will vacuum up immediate hazards once a child is found to be poisoned. Waiting on full renovations can take much longer.
Branch said her landlord promised to fix all the lead hazards once she re-upped her lease for another year. She refused and broke her existing lease early — especially scared after CPS’ warning.
“I lost all trust in landlords. I lost all trust in this building,” she said. “And I’m not going to sign anything because I’m already hurting my son by being here.”
The move prompted Ogden and Company to sue, damaging Branch’s credit and siphoning her mother’s wages until the debt was paid. Branch said she didn’t learn of the lawsuit until landlords elsewhere denied her rental applications.
The family this year successfully petitioned the court to seal records from the lawsuit.
An Ogden and Company spokesperson declined to comment on the litigation and wrote in an email: “In most cases, we are a third party management firm for an ownership entity that we neither own nor control.”
Branch initially turned to extended family for housing and later moved into a shelter when she “became a burden to live with,” she said.
With funding scarce, the city health department offers few home relocation resources other than making referrals to other agencies. The home must be condemned for renters with written orders from DNS to receive such support. That might include 30 days of rent assistance from Community Advocates, a social services nonprofit, Mannan said.
Homelessness due to lead hazards
That’s what Honegger, a retired nurse, discovered when she was forced to relocate when her daughter and grandson were exposed to lead in four Milwaukee rental properties. Doctors at one point found paint chips in the daughter’s stomach, causing her lead levels to skyrocket, Honegger said.
Honegger said she received a 30-day hotel voucher, but she paid out of pocket for the rest of the year and lost lead dust-covered possessions as she continued searching for a safe, affordable rental.
“We lost clothes, furniture, everything. We had to catch up with hospital bills,” Honegger said.
The health department said it’s working with philanthropy, hospital systems and foundations to expand funding for lead abatement and associated costs, Mannan said.
“We’ve already built a system,” Mannan said. “We just need you to help fund it. The taxpayers can’t fund it on their own.”
The city health department is taking a new approach with landlords. It ended a process in which a landlord would automatically qualify for a taxpayer-funded abatement when a child was found to be poisoned — and would be cited only when refusing to hire a contractor. However, low-income property owners can still receive subsidized abatement.
Under the new process, the city will charge re-inspection fees to unresponsive landlords as the first step in an escalated enforcement strategy for compliance. If a landlord doesn’t abate after two warnings, the city can continue reinspection fees at $350, issue citations, or ask a judge to allow the department to perform the work itself and add the costs to the landlord’s building taxes.
Republican-enacted state law restricts rental inspections
Still, those actions come only after a child is found to be poisoned. Renter advocates want the city to proactively investigate lead and other hazards.
Rochester, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio, are among cities that require inspections for lead hazards before tenants move in. Advocates say those ordinances could help curb childhood lead poisoning.
That’s not possible in Milwaukee due to the state law capping inspection fees, Mannan said. With so many suspect properties, the city could not afford proactive inspections without raising fees on landlords.
Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature capped fees as part of a series of laws that limited local renter protections. Beginning in 2011, lawmakers — including some who themselves are landlords — also prohibited municipalities from requiring rentals to be certified, registered or licensed and limited the scope of rental inspection programs.
The changes prompted Milwaukee in 2016 to shutter a DNS program that performed additional rental inspections in areas dense with rental properties.
The Wisconsin cities of Eau Claire, Racine and Oshkosh require rental inspections for certain building hazards, using careful wording to comply with the state’s narrowed law. State law allows targeted rental inspections to address “habitability” violations that pose a “substantial hazard to the health or safety of the tenant.” Cities can define that to include lead.
Eau Claire’s targeted inspections prompted two full lead inspections at properties in the last year, according to Matt Steinbach, the environmental sciences division manager for the Eau Claire City-County Health Department.
Roberts acknowledged that Milwaukee could legally target lead similarly, but said the city lacks funding to do so on a large scale.
Homes now lead-free, but challenges linger
Branch’s family now lives in a lead-free rental. Aidan, now 10, still faces challenges that Branch suspects relate to early lead exposure. He struggles to stay focused due to an attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, and he can turn angry and argumentative — symptoms of his diagnosed oppositional defiant disorder.
But Branch has learned to better communicate with Aidan. He now helps take care of his little sister and enjoys drawing pictures — including for a children’s book Branch authored in which Aidan defeats the “evil lead monster.”
“It really is awesome to see how much he’s grown,” Branch said. “I never thought we would get there.”
As for Honegger, her 12-year-old daughter is enrolled in school special needs programs, and she said lead exposure did not help the behavioral issues of her four-year-old grandson who is on the autism spectrum.
But Honegger was relieved in June to sign a lease at a lead-free rental.
“There is not one speck of lead in my house now. I am so happy,” Honegger said. “I got tears in my eyes.”
HOW TO: Worried about lead as a Wisconsin tenant or property owner? Here’s what to know.
A guide for navigating lead hazards in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin.
By Farrah Anderson, Wisconsin Watch
Lead is a serious public health hazard — a neurotoxin that damages the brain and nervous system, especially in young children. Exposure can delay growth and development and cause problems with learning, behavior, hearing and speech, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Children can be poisoned by ingesting lead paint, lead-tainted water, soil, dust or other lead-based products. Lead poses the greatest risk to brain development, where damage can be irreversible, but medical treatment and nutrition changes can lower lead levels in blood.
Homeowners have power to remove lead hazards from their home, if they have the resources. But renters rely on their landlords to take action. That doesn’t always happen.
Here’s what to know if you’re a tenant concerned about lead in your home.
Test your child and yourself — especially if you are pregnant.
No level of lead is considered safe. Young children are particularly vulnerable to lead and may face higher levels of exposure because they often put their hands or other objects in their mouths, including paint chips. Drinking water can make up 20% of a person’s total exposure to lead, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — or up to 60% for infants consuming mostly mixed formula. Children with elevated lead levels do not typically act sick, meaning blood tests are the only way to confirm a problem.
Adults can be lead poisoned, too. Lead is a particular concern for pregnant women because exposure could harm a developing fetus. If your child has elevated lead levels, get yourself tested, too.
Most insurance plans cover lead testing. You may be asked to complete a second test if the first one shows high lead levels.
How often and when to test? Where you live matters.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services recommends universal testing for children living in Milwaukee or Racine due to the high proportion of old, potentially hazardous housing in those communities. Those children should be tested at least three times before age 3 — at 1 year, 18 months and 2 years. Children ages 3 to 5 years should be tested annually if they meet at least one of the following criteria: they live in a home built before 1950 or one built before 1978 with recent or ongoing renovations; they have a sibling or playmate with lead poisoning; they are enrolled in the Medicaid or the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program or are uninsured; they have no record of a prior test.
Health care providers should weigh the above criteria when considering whether a child living outside of Milwaukee or Racine should be tested around ages 1 and 2 years, or between ages 3 and 6 years, DHS says. Find more details here.
If you’re living in Milwaukee and concerned about child lead exposure contact the Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers Milwaukee office at 414-672-1353. It provides free lead testing for elevated blood levels and information about how to permanently remove lead hazards from homes.
Children’s Wisconsin is piloting a testing program focusing on Milwaukee’s North Side neighborhoods. The hospital is partnering with MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary, which offers free lead testing for children under 10 years old on select Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Residents should call 414-404-0900, extension 5, or email KDLeadtalk2@maccanonbrown.org, to confirm testing dates.
Landlords must disclose risks
The federal government banned lead paint in homes built after 1978, and federal law requires landlords to disclose certain information to tenants who move into a building that predates that ban. That includes anything known about the property’s lead paint hazards, a pamphlet and a lead disclosure agreement to the lease.
If you’re considering moving into a home built before 1978, ask the property owner about any lead hazards in the home.
Removing lead from a rental
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services established the Lead Safe Homes Program, which helps remove lead hazards in homes. You may qualify if you are: enrolled in Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus, part of a family with children under 19, are pregnant or live with someone who is pregnant.
The state requires local health department investigations and case management services for children when one venous blood test detects at least 20 mcg/dL per deciliter of lead — or if two tests conducted at least 90 days apart find lead at 15 mcg/dL. That includes inspecting properties for lead and requiring landlords to remove hazards.
The Milwaukee Health Department is using federal American Rescue Plan dollars to fund a pilot program that helps families with children who test between 10 and 14.9 mcg/dL. This includes lead abatement, education, lead safe kit distribution and nurse case management.
The Milwaukee Health Department also established the Childhood Lead Primary Prevention Program, which taps federal funding to provide landlords up to $40,000 for abatement. Qualifying landlords must be willing to rent the unit to low-income families with children — and currently have low-income tenants.
How does replacing lead water service lines work?
Local health departments are not required to test water for lead during inspections. Milwaukee residents can check whether their properties are connected to a lead service line at the city’s website.
Milwaukee in recent years mandated replacements for lead pipes found to be disrupted or leaking — and those that serve private schools and child care providers. For mandated replacements, a city cost-sharing program limits the tab for participating property owners to $1,592.
Properties with more than four units are not eligible for cost sharing for required replacements. Also ineligible for the subsidy: Milwaukee property owners who choose to replace service lines when not required. They must pay 100% of the bill.
The city of Milwaukee recommends that residents of homes connected to lead service lines install a lead-certified water filter. The Milwaukee-based Coalition on Lead Emergency regularly passes out filters to Milwaukee residents free of charge.
How to complain about lead hazards
The Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services recommends first contacting your landlord if you are concerned about lead at your rental. If that doesn’t prompt action, you can file a complaint with the department. But DNS oversees building codes, not health codes. So it can order a property owner to fix peeling paint, but it cannot order a full abatement. That’s the job of the Milwaukee Health Department, which typically only orders an abatement based upon a child’s lead-blood test.
To check if you qualify for full lead abatement, contact the Milwaukee Health Department at 414-286-2165.
If you report lead concerns to your landlord, do so in writing so you can prove when you notified them, according to the Tenant Resource Center, a Madison-based nonprofit.
A letter helps prove when the landlord knew about the lead paint — potentially helping you show negligence later on, the center says. It is also a “paper trail that will force the landlord to disclose all known lead paint violations to future tenants.”
The Milwaukee Health Department has acknowledged difficulties in holding landlords accountable for lead hazards, but the department has vowed to ramp up enforcement in the coming months.
What other organizations might help?
Milwaukee residents should contact IMPACT 211 (dial 2-1-1) if they are experiencing homelessness. They can also visit IMPACT’s in-person sites on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays: Repairers of the Breach, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and St. Ben’s Clinic, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Residents can contact the Milwaukee Rental Housing Resource Center (414-895-7368) if they are: facing eviction, late on rent or experiencing landlord/tenant issues. They can walk in to 728 N. James Lovell St. or visit renthelpmke.org.
To learn more about resources, events and grassroots organizing around lead, contact the Coalition on Lead Emergency at CoalitionOnLeadEmergency@gmail.com.
For concerns about evictions or other legal issues call Legal Action of Wisconsin at 855-947-2529.
The Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union also provides resources for renters. Call 414-410-9714.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
