02-06-19 Health and Public Safety

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK realignment of process. Also, because these are the complaints we do know about, one (1) of the biggest things that has emerged in all of our conversations with community groups and renters is that there is a real fear of reporting an unsafe housing condition. People may feel they are likely to be evicted and they may actually be evicted. I want to emphasize that this is a thing that actually happens. We are finding that if we are getting eight hundred and twenty-five (825) complaints in a year but the conditions we are seeing when we happen to go into properties are as bad as the cases we've shown you, we know that signal is wrong and there are people afraid to reach out to us. We want to realign this so that the burden of ensuring those safety standards are met is not on the vulnerable tenant,but instead on the property owner and City to ensure we are protecting them as best as possible. The appropriate analogy for this is a restaurant safety inspection.You wouldn't eat in a restaurant that hadn't received a health grade. We know you get over food poisoning in a day or so,but housing can be associated with quite severe health problems.Just like we proactively enforce safety standards in restaurant inspection, we believe that is an example of how we can address housing safety standards. She continued, As Tracy touched on, we are looking at minimum safety standards. We are really taking our cues from HUD guidelines which outline about eight(8)qualities associated with a safe and healthy home. It is meant to be kept dry, clean, safe, well-ventilated, contaminant-free, well- maintained and femerally controlled. These are fairly basic criteria and our goal is to ensure those are standards that are uniformly followed so that tenants across South Bend can access safe and healthy housing. As I mentioned,the goal is to promote the health and safety of renters by ensuring the properties meet existing minimum safety standards for environmental and building maintenance. The way this works is a Code Enforcement Inspector will look at the conditions of the property inside and outside of the unit and have a checklist of items to look for and I think we have some copies of that which I believe have been circulated to Council, but we will certainly make it available. It is a visible inspection, so it would take about twenty (20) minutes. We are looking at things like chipping and peeling paint, visible leaks, electrical systems and adequate heat. Following the successful completion of the inspection, Code Enforcement would issue a Certificate of Rental Safety. Our hope and goal is that the vast majority of units will qualify for a five(5)year certificate,meaning this is not an annual inspection. There is then a sliding scale. One (1)thing we've heard from a lot of people is that it is difficult for people to find safe and affordable housing just because they don't know where to look.Part of this will help us create sort of a register of properties that have this safety certification that we could then put on the City's website. That is a marketing tool for landlords and property owners but also a resource for residents. She went on,A question I'm sure you may have deals with what the financial impact will be of all of this. As you may recall, in the budget cycle prior to this previous one (1), Council approved about $180,000 for the hire of two (2) Code Inspectors that would be targeted for this program. Tracy can speak more to this, but Code has realigned the inspection team, so we are actually looking at about four(4) inspectors including our Chief Inspector, Jim, who is here today. When we are thinking about financial impact, we look at this as an investment in the health and safety of City residents as well as the maintenance of the City's housing stock. There is no direct cost to property owners unless they are renting housing that doesn't meet safety guidelines and they aren't making appropriate repairs to that in a timely fashion. I would like to point this out as well that we see this as an investment that when funds are invested in public health it generates savings over time. So, one dollar ($1), according to the American Public Health Association, invested in lead poisoning prevention generates savings between seventeen and twenty-one dollars ($17 - $21) in EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 I I U574.235 5567 wwwsouthbendin.gov 4