Tenant and public health advocates oppose legislative efforts to rollback Rhode Island's rental registry
“We ask the General Assembly to stay the course. The rental register requirement has been a huge step in the right direction for ensuring safe homes for R.I. families. Let’s not roll that back."
“More lead certificates mean more lead-safe homes for Rhode Island’s children. And more lead-safe homes mean less lead exposure for young children in the Ocean State. First and foremost, this is a safety measure,” says DeeAnn Guo, a community organizer with the Childhood Lead Action Project. “If there had been no rental registry, many landlords would not have had a reason to get their inspections. The threat of impending fines and the possibility that tenants could withhold their rent by placing it into an escrow account was the most powerful motivator.”
In addition to the Childhood Lead Action Project, advocates and supporters from Reclaim Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office, and the Rhode Island Center for Justice gathered on the north side of the State House to push back against legislative efforts to weaken the recently enacted rental registry, which gives officials the power to enforce a law - through fines - that has been on the books for over 20 years.
Despite the success of the law, legislators more concerned about landlord profits than children’s health have introduced multiple pieces of legislation in the General Assembly this session to weaken and delay the registry. Tenant and public health advocates are calling for the maintenance of the existing law, which is getting a record number of rental units into compliance, and in doing so, protecting children from lead poisoning. The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) has delayed enforcement action to provide landlords with sufficient time to comply with the regulations.
Rhode Island’s statewide rental registry is an online platform where all residential landlords are required to register their rental properties and basic contact information. For rental units built before 1978, proof of a valid lead certificate is also required to complete registration. Since the rental registry went live in September 2024, RIDOH, the agency overseeing the registry, reports that 8,188 properties, representing 40,039 units and 17,574 lead certificates, have registered as of May 2025.
One primary goal of the rental registry was to serve as a tool for enforcing existing lead laws. Rhode Island’s Lead Hazard Mitigation Act was passed over twenty years ago and established the requirement for most rental units built before 1978 (the year lead paint was banned) to pass a lead inspection every two years as a standard of lead safety. While concurrent efforts have steadily brought lead exposure rates down, more than 900 children were considered to have an elevated blood lead level just last year.
The registry is working: according to RIDOH, from September 2024 to February 2025, the period surrounding the launch of the rental registry, lead inspectors issued an average of 2,267 certificates per month, representing a significant increase from the typical 733 issued per month in 2023.
The rental registry law includes a clause that prohibits eviction due to nonpayment of rent when a unit is not registered, allowing a tenant to pay rent into escrow until the landlord shows evidence of taking steps toward lead safety.
“In 2023, the legislature passed the rental registry to finally start enforcing our decades-old lead safety laws before kids are poisoned,” said Shana Crandell, Executive Director of Reclaim RI. “This was a great achievement, and a key piece of the law enables tenants to pay rent into escrow if their landlord refuses to take steps to make their apartment lead-safe. This enforcement mechanism is necessary to achieve compliance with lead safety and thus to prevent childhood brain damage caused by lead poisoning. We call on legislators to preserve the rental registry in full, and we thank the legislators who have worked to maintain this critical public health tool. We must move forward and pass reasonable and effective tenant protections like Just Cause, not backwards and roll back an enforcement mechanism that is working to protect our kids.”
As of now, no fines have been issued due to noncompliance with the rental registry. There is also no date listed on the RIDOH website for upcoming penalties.
Here’s the video:
Colton Conroy is a mathematical scientist who studies ocean waves and the probability of energy transferring from the air to the sea. His family’s story is sadly typical:
“My wife, our three children, and I moved into an apartment on the East Side of Providence in July 2023. Our kids at the time were 11, four, and two. When we moved into the apartment, we weren’t given a lead disclosure, and our landlord told us that the home was made safe because he and his family had lived there. He had small children there, and he had ensured that the home was safe and that we shouldn’t worry about any lead.
“There was chipping paint in the apartment, and he said that he would paint that, so when we moved in, we were expecting him to paint the apartment. He had someone come in and paint an entryway wall, and after that, he said he was done painting. We didn’t expect any issues with the lead because he had told us he had made it safe, but we still thought that chipping paint was bad for our kids, so he told us we could paint.
“We went ahead and painted, not knowing that we were encapsulating lead at the time. After that, we continued living in the apartment, but some additional issues arose - there were holes in the walls, and we discovered areas with chipped paint. Once again, we raised concerns with the landlord, and he assured us that everything was safe, no cause for concern.
“In February, there was a leak in the roof from the northeastern area, and moisture got in and started causing large chunks of peeling paint to come off the ceiling, so he fixed the roof and told us he was not going to be able to fix the paint until July. As more and more sheets of paint kept falling off, we’d send him pictures, and he would respond with the same thing: he wouldn’t be able to fix it until July.
“My wife showed some of the pictures to a neighbor of ours, and they said that we should be concerned about lead paint. We sent our landlord an email telling him this was a concern of ours. My wife is a journalist, so she did some research and found out about the lead laws and the option to put your rent into escrow if the landlord didn’t have a lead certificate.
“She did some more research and found out that he did not have a lead certificate, so she said, we could be putting our rent into escrow - but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to work with him. We were hoping he would do the right thing.
“Our landlord agreed to have an inspector come and test the ceiling. And when the inspector came to test the ceiling, she said she had tested it and it was negative. However, she mentioned that a new law is being implemented, which will take effect at the beginning of October, so the landlord will need to test the entire house anyway. So she went ahead and tested the entire apartment. When she tested the entire apartment, all the areas that we had concerns about tested positive for very high levels of lead, about 20 times the federal standard.
“They were all deemed as lead hazards. In fact, there were door jams where the door was rubbing, and the inspector showed us dust falling from the door jams. My wife did further research and discovered that the landlord had been cited for lead violations in 2017. He knew there was lead in the home and didn’t give us a lead disclosure.
“Once again, we went to him and asked him why we did not get a lead disclosure? He responded by saying that his lawyer had advised him not to speak to us anymore. This was after we had asked him to put us in a hotel until the place could be remediated because we were scared. We have young children in the home, and we were trying to prevent any harm coming upon them, but he told us he wasn’t going to relocate us.
“At that time, we decided to withhold our rent because he wasn’t starting the remediations and he wasn’t telling us what was going on. It was only after we withheld our rent that he began to do the work. Unfortunately, as the work progressed, he wouldn’t pay for us to be relocated to another place, so when the work began, we didn’t leave. Then one of the painters told us we couldn’t be in the apartment while he was doing these areas, so we immediately left the home and went camping. We returned when the work was supposed to be completed, only to find that it wasn’t finished.
“It was a very stressful process because we had to start staying at neighbors’ houses. Then, when we were told we could go back in, we remembered the lead inspector telling us that we shouldn’t go back in until the house had cleared a dust wipe, so we didn’t go back in.
“I was able to get hold of the lead inspector, and she said Don’t go back in and wait until she does the dust wipe. Initially, the apartment failed a visual inspection and the dust wipe. It wasn’t until I went in and cleaned the dust left in there that we were able to pass a dust wipe, and we were able to move back in.
“However, we found that they missed some places, so the work wasn’t done. He wasn’t given a certificate, and three days before the law went into effect, he filed an eviction case against us. I can’t tell you how stressful it was to be in that situation. First, finding out that there are lead hazards in your home with small children when you thought there wasn’t any lead, and then going through an eviction process while trying to keep your children safe, and all the work not being completed.
“My wife and I weren’t allowed to present our case as to why we were withholding our rent before the judge. As we sat in Superior Court, listening to the judge, we realized that we were about to be evicted. We were essentially forced to sign a stipulation stating that we would pay all the back rent and would be out of our apartment by the end of February.
“My wife and I have more advantages than a lot of people in our situation who could have very easily ended up homeless. However, with help from our friends and family, we were able to find a home, but if the law had been in place, we would not have been able to be evicted.
“The landlord didn’t start doing what he was supposed to do until we withheld our rent. These laws are working, and they’re helping to bring landlords into compliance. I urge the legislative body to stand by the laws you’ve passed. They're working, helping to keep tenants safe, and providing tenants with a way to right the power imbalance that exists when tenants can be evicted if they withhold their rent due to hazards in their house.
“The only way to prevent lead poisonings and keep children safe is to keep their homes safe, and that’s what these laws are doing. They’re forcing landlords to keep children’s homes safe and in good repair.
“It’s interesting to note that as incident levels have fallen in Rhode Island, test scores have gone up, and there’s a clear correlation in the research between the IQ level of children and the amount of lead in their blood. I urge the legislators to stand by what they’ve done and help keep the children of Rhode Island safe.”
Shana Crandell, executive director of Reclaim Rhode Island, told the story of helping to organize the tenants of Pioneer Investments.
“Two years ago we organized dozens of Pioneer Investments tenants, a slumlord who lives on Manchin Drive in Massachusetts. Tenants were paying rent to live in abhorrent conditions. We met at least a dozen parents whose kids had been poisoned or had elevated blood lead levels. One parent recalled Pioneer sending workers, seemingly off Craigslist, to scrape paint while she and her baby were in the apartment. Her baby was poisoned, and a few months later, she was evicted. That’s the reality of the rental crisis here in Rhode Island.
“Pioneer tenants’ brave organizing was instrumental to winning the rental registry in 2023. After more than 20 years of lead safety laws being in effect, they would finally be enforced. Finally, enforcement would kick in before kids are poisoned to prevent them from being brain-damaged. The registry is operational, and it functions in part because it creates a financial incentive for landlords to comply.
The registry enables tenants to pay rent into escrow if their landlord refuses to take steps to make their apartment safe and habitable. If landlords want to get their rent checks, they’ve got to make sure the apartment they’re renting out isn’t toxic and won’t cause brain damage to their tenants’ kids. This enforcement mechanism is necessary, or we wouldn’t have such low compliance 23 years after the passage of lead safety laws.
There have been attempts this session to weaken this critical public health tool. We thank and commend the legislators who have been holding the line, and we call on the General Assembly to oppose dangerous rollbacks of the registry, like Senate Bill 718, that puts renters’ children at risk of serious harm.
This is the time to build on progress, not reverse it. Poor and working-class people in our state have to choose between paying half their paycheck for substandard housing or homelessness. Dozens of our neighbors died unsheltered in the cold this winter. We urge the General Assembly to take real action on tenant rights and pass Just Cause Eviction Protection this session. Just Cause is an effective and free way to keep people from losing their homes. By prohibiting arbitrary evictions and price gouging, we can build a Rhode Island where everyone has access to safe and stable housing.
To our legislators: We thank you for preserving the rental registry, and we urge you to take action on tenant rights this session.
Troy Lange is a supervising attorney with the Rhode Island Center for Justice who has been representing tenants for about four years.
“In that time, I’ve come to realize the true extent of the age and state of the housing stock in Rhode Island. A significant proportion of rental properties were built prior to 1978, which means that they contain lead. Amending the rental registration environment as proposed in Senate Bill 718 would have disastrous consequences for the health and safety of tenants in the state. Particularly, children and pregnant women are susceptible to lead poisoning. As Shana just mentioned, the Lead Hazard Mitigation Act was passed all the way back in 2002. Landlords have had over 20 years to comply with the requirement to have a Certificate of Lead Conformance for the properties they rent out that were built before 1978.
“A certificate of lead conformance is evidence from RIDOH that an apartment is a safe place to have your family and your children reside. It can be free from the dangerous consequences of lead poisoning. However, before this registry was passed, the limited consequences for non-compliance meant that a number of older properties that were not in compliance had troublingly high rates. The registry has been the most effective way to get landlords into compliance and keep our children safe.
“As a lawyer, I’m familiar with our state Supreme Court’s stance on landlord and tenant matters. Generally, they’ve said that landlords who comply with the law are entitled to the benefits it provides, and when their tenants don’t pay the rent, they are able to quickly and easily evict those tenants. This bill aims to amend the law so that landlords who are not in compliance with a law over 20 years old can avoid the consequences of those actions and still benefit from eviction laws, despite not being in compliance with lead safety laws.
“Additionally, it’s essential to maintain the registration requirement for all landlords, as well as the registry’s public-facing contact information, which is another aspect of the law that Senate Bill 718 proposes to roll back. It may seem extremely old-fashioned, but I’ve spoken to multiple tenants who do not have contact information for their landlords. I’ve asked them how they might report issues with the property to their landlords, and they say they have to wait until the landlord comes around to pick up the rent on the first of the month to let them know. That’s unacceptable. This is a public safety measure meant to protect children and families in Rhode Island.
“We ask the General Assembly to stay the course, as the rental register requirement has been a huge step in the right direction for ensuring safe homes for Rhode Island families. Let’s not roll that back.”
“The rental registry is working,” said DeeAnn Guo. “We’ve heard a firsthand account of it. We’ve been speaking with people all across the state who have been affected by the protections it offers. It is working, but there is a lot more work to be done. We need to improve education to ensure that landlords understand how to achieve lead safety and maintain it. We must work to ensure that, once fines start rolling in —which they have not yet — there are real consequences for those who continue to violate the laws. Additionally, we must ensure that there is sufficient financial assistance for homeowners who need it.
“There are thousands of units that still need to get onto our registry, and these are not just units - they represent places where Rhode Islanders rest, eat, play, sleep, and feel at home. Everybody deserves a lead-safe home. I was at work today, and people were calling. I know landlords are working to get their homes lead safe, and that is due to the success of our rental industry.”