Seller-Financed Deals Are Putting Poor People in Lead-Tainted Homes

A year after Tiffany Bennett moved into a two-story red brick house at 524 Loudon Avenue here, she received alarming news.

Two children, both younger than 6, for whom Ms. Bennett was guardian, were found to have dangerous levels of lead in their blood. Lead paint throughout the nearly 100-year-old home had poisoned them.

Who was responsible for the dangerous conditions in the home?

Baltimore health officials say it was an out-of-state investment company that entered into a rent-to-own lease with the unemployed Ms. Bennett to take the home in 2014 “as is” — chipping, peeling lead paint and all.

Ms. Bennett, 46, and the children moved out, but they should never have been in the house at all. City officials had declared the house “unfit for human habitation” in 2013.

Read the full article in the New York Times