This story was copublished and supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
MILWAUKEE — When Domininck Tompkins received the call from her pediatrician confirming that her 1-year-old daughter’s blood lead level had spiked, the news felt like a physical blow. She lived in a rental home defined by peeling paint and crumbling infrastructure—a classic, silent killer hidden in the walls of aging housing stock. When she confronted her landlord with the medical evidence, the response was chillingly dismissive: three words, delivered as the landlord rolled up her truck window: "I don’t care."
That moment of indifference set the trajectory for the next decade of Tompkins’ life. She has since moved multiple times, experienced homelessness twice, and struggled to shield her three daughters—ages 11, 7, and 2—from the toxic legacy of lead. As she prepares for the birth of her fourth child, she remains haunted by the developmental and behavioral challenges her older children face—conditions doctors attribute, at least in part, to their early, involuntary exposure to lead.
Tompkins’ story is not an outlier; it is a recurring nightmare for thousands of families in Milwaukee. In a city where nearly 60 percent of residents are renters, the intersection of poverty and environmental safety has created a public health crisis where the most vulnerable citizens effectively serve as "lead detectors."
The Anatomy of a Public Health Failure
The mechanism of this crisis is as cruel as it is simple: municipal authorities typically only intervene when a child’s blood test triggers a red flag. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies 3.5 micrograms per deciliter as the reference value for elevated lead levels, Milwaukee’s deep intervention—including home investigations and mandated abatement—often does not kick in until a child reaches 10 micrograms or higher.
By the time the city swings into action, the damage is often irreversible. The physiological impact of lead on a developing brain is profound. Research consistently links lead exposure to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, and significant developmental delays. A Milwaukee-based study recently underscored that even low-level exposure is statistically correlated with poor third-grade academic performance, regardless of family income or birth weight.
"Children are the lead detectors," says Tyler Weber, the city’s deputy commissioner of environmental health. "We are often stuck in a situation where we have to ask: Do you hate the landlord more than you love the child? Sometimes we have to throw money at the property even if the landlord is going to benefit, just to ensure the child is safe."
A Chronology of Declining Oversight
Milwaukee was once a vanguard in the fight against lead. In 1991, the city implemented stringent ordinances requiring abatement in rentals regardless of whether a child had already tested positive. By 1999, a pilot inspection program forced thousands of homes to meet safety standards. It was a period where, according to former health department lead manager Amy Murphy, the city "regularly took owners to court and fined them."
The shift in the political winds, however, proved devastating. Under pressure from landlord groups, the city abandoned its proactive inspection model in the early 2000s, opting instead for a system of "voluntary" compliance and financial incentives that failed to stem the tide of poisonings. The decline culminated in a 2018 public health scandal, where the city was forced to acknowledge it had failed to notify thousands of families about their children’s lead test results, leading to the resignation of the health commissioner.
The final blow to local oversight came in 2015, when the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a law—supported by the state builders association—that effectively prohibited cities from creating proactive rental inspection programs. Even after the ban was partially lifted, the legislative framework remains heavily tilted in favor of property owners, stripping municipalities of the power to implement licensing programs or impose meaningful fines on recalcitrant landlords.
The Cost of Inaction: Supporting Data
The data reveals the geography of this inequity. Between 2018 and 2021, over 10 percent of children tested in 51 of the county’s census tracts returned positive results for lead poisoning. In six specific tracts, that number soared above 20 percent—more than eight times the national average.
The financial burden of this negligence is rarely borne by the property owners. Last year, the city oversaw 250 renovations for children poisoned by lead, using a combination of federal grants and municipal funds. For 2025 alone, over 2,000 children under the age of 6 tested high for lead in the Milwaukee area. Because the city lacks the legal teeth to force landlords to pay, the public is essentially subsidizing the remediation of private, dilapidated rentals.
The Personal Toll and the Path to Advocacy
For Shyquetta McElroy, the crisis became personal when her eldest son tested high for lead at his six-week checkup. For years, she navigated the maze of medical appointments and special education meetings. When his kindergarten teachers recommended he repeat the year, McElroy finally broke through the cycle—partly because her landlord was her own mother, who agreed to spend $20,000 on abatement.
Realizing that many other families lacked that safety net, McElroy pivoted to advocacy. As the executive director of the Coalition on the Lead Emergency (COLE), she now spends her time coaching parents on how to navigate the medical system and negotiate with schools.
"Being in a position where you are low-income and don’t have the money to change your situation, you have to go with what you can," McElroy says. Her experience in the rental market has made her a fierce critic of a system where "the loopholes are bigger for the landlords and very, very narrow for the tenants."
The "Rochester Model" vs. The Wisconsin Reality
Milwaukee’s reactive approach stands in stark contrast to cities like Rochester, New York. For over two decades, Rochester has required every registered rental unit to undergo visual inspections for deteriorating paint every three to six years. If a unit fails, it cannot be rented until it passes a reinspection. The results are undeniable: the rate of childhood lead poisoning in Rochester dropped 85 percent between 2000 and 2016.
The difference, advocates note, is legislative will. New York law provides tenant protections that are currently absent in Wisconsin, where the threat of eviction serves as a potent tool for landlords to silence complaints. As Weber notes, "When a child has been poisoned, parents are devastated and angry. They ask, ‘Why would I continue paying rent?’ But there’s no protection, and they can be evicted."
Implications and Future Outlook
The landscape in Milwaukee is slowly beginning to shift, albeit unevenly. The formation of "Tenants United," a new union organized by the nonprofit Common Ground, marks a significant turning point in tenant activism. In a landmark legal move this spring, the union partnered with the city attorney to sue Highgrove Holdings, a major out-of-state landlord, for operating properties that constitute a public nuisance.
However, the clock is ticking. As 2026 concludes, the city will lose vital American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that have been the primary engine for lead abatement. While the city hopes to bridge the gap with federal HUD grants, these come with stricter caps on spending per unit, potentially leaving the most complex cases without a funding source.
For Domininck Tompkins, the struggle continues. Her current landlord has promised to address the hazards in her home, but the work is slow and disruptive. Her 19-year-old, who suffered the most in her early years, still battles memory retention, vision, and hearing issues—a reminder that "you can lower the lead level, but they never lose the damage."
As Milwaukee stares down the future, the question remains whether the city will continue to rely on its children to act as the front-line sensors for environmental catastrophe, or if it will finally muster the political courage to treat housing as a fundamental health right rather than a tool for profit. Until the laws change, the poison remains, tucked behind the walls of the city’s oldest homes, waiting for the next child to move in.
