Lead free?

Lead poisoning costs the United States more than $50 billion per year according to the National Institutes of Health, yet critics say governmental efforts to reduce the impact of lead toxicity have an unacceptable price tag.

Despite a 98% drop in lead exposure among young children since 1980, nearly 500,000 children still have more than 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s toxic enough to cause behavioral issues, lowered IQ, and slowed development. Although only 29% of U.S. homes still have lead-based paint, the odds of lead poisoning increase in poorer neighborhoods and in housing built before 1950.

But despite the strides made to protect the vulnerable, recently the pendulum has swung the other way as lawmakers work to help potential landlords. In early 2025, four Kentucky legislators sponsored a bill forbidding local governments from requiring landlords to assess rentals for lead safety. Only weeks after that, the Louisville, Ky., Metro Council voted to stop requiring landlords of pre-1978 housing to test for lead hazards.

Chief bill sponsor Kentucky state Rep. Ryan Dotson said lead hazard testing and remediation are too expensive for many landlords and “this could have translated to a huge debacle in the housing market there.”

HomeAdvisor lists the normal range for a lead paint inspection nationally at $240-$439 per home and lead remediation costs from $8 to $17 per square foot, which translates to as much as $18,000 for a 1,100-square-foot house. That puts a crunch on an already tight housing market, particularly the low-income housing sector in Louisville, which has an unmet need of more than 36,000 housing units, according to the city’s 2024 Housing Needs Assessment. Statewide, low-income renters need nearly 93,000 more homes based on data from the Kentucky Housing Corp.

The cost for hazard mitigation is indeed high: A 2009 study put the potential cost in the United States for permanent removal of lead paint hazards at $11 billion. But experts also say that the benefit is even higher: Ridding the country of the toxin could save Americans between $202 and $323 billion in health and social costs.

Others are skeptical of the efficiency of government programs. According to Delaware television station WHYY, the state has spent nearly $4 million since 2023 to completely remove lead hazards in soil and paint in 30 homes, an average of $95,200 per home. Having spent that, Delaware only has enough remaining funds for a “tiny fraction” of homes still needing lead remediation.

But some states and municipalities have found success running programs where community groups work together to reduce the risk of childhood lead poisoning. Knoxville’s Lead Safe and Healthy Homes Program, which maintains a lead-safe housing registry, is one example of success. The program wins competitive Federal Housing and Urban Development grants to assist landlords who otherwise struggle to pay for lead hazard mitigation.

“Landlords love this,” said Todd Kennedy, of East Tennessee Housing Development Corp. “They get assistance on improving their properties and end up with a ‘lead-free’ certification for their rentals.” The program also trains renovation contractors to be safe and efficient lead mitigators, giving them a new marketable skill.

State and local regulations have done their part by keeping administrative costs low. “The economics work,” Kennedy said.