How Rochester responded to its lead poisoning problem: Toxic Neglect

A new book chronicles each below-market subsidized housing project ever built in New York, highlighting in particular Co-op City, where residents have come to care for their city-subsidized homes.

Cleveland has a list of lead-safe homes, a result of decades of cleaning up hazards with tens of millions of dollars in HUD grant money.

It's been a decade since the city of Rochester, New York, committed to tackling its lead poisoning problem head on. What resulted was a more than 80 percent drop in the number of children with high lead levels. It's a change leaders believe is sustainable.

Lead poisoning is not purely a problem of the poor - it can affect any child living in an older home, or playing on contaminated soil. New solutions journalism efforts aim to increase transparency about the risks and to help parents decide whether their children should be tested.

Foreclosure affects millions of homeowners and millions more owe more on their mortgages than what their homes are worth, but Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP), offers assistance. As a free service to borrowers, ESOP holds lenders accountable with fair lending agreements, creates constructive communication, and ultimately saves homes.

New York City suffered from fires that erupted in overcrowded, run-down apartments. Then the city sleuthed through residential records and found that landlords who foreclosed let their properties fall apart and ignored safety-code violations. Greater Toronto wants to expand upon New York City’s method by using transportation surveys, census data and computer data to build transit lines.

The militarization of police forces in cases such as Ferguson, Missouri’s riots has led the state of Utah to question what can be done to prevent such an overuse of force from happening. Utah expanded upon a law passed by Democratic legislature in Maryland, which Utah’s ACLU reworked with some libertarians, to require the police to provide data about SWAT team usage. Utah’s success demonstrates that demilitarization bills passed with bipartisan support are not impossible.

Richmond, California ranked among the highest homicide rates in the country. The city created the Office of Neighborhood Safety to engage the community in the effort to curb gun violence and prevent homicides. ONS works directly with the young people who are at risk and have succeeded in reducing the homicide rate.

Although residents turn up their air conditioners, Louisville heat is increasing the city’s death rate by 39 people every year. The city mayor launched a tree commission for planting more trees and since 2011 has planted over 12,000 trees. The canopies from the tree offer cooling shade and bring down the temperature of the city as a whole. The response also includes the installation of green roofs and in-depth research on urban heat islands.

To address the increasing unaffordability of housing in Berlin, the city introduced a new rent control law to prevent rates from exponential growth. The city has also outlawed vacation rentals in certain zones of the city and created a program that aims to have 30,000 new rental properties available over the next decade.