An investigative audio feature by Farrah Anderson for Wisconsin Watch and Wisconsin Public Radio
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Deanna Branch thought she found the perfect two-story home to rent on Milwaukee’s North Side.
Perfect until severe lead poisoning in 2015 sent Branch’s then-2-year-old son Aidan to the hospital.
Her landlord didn’t fully address the home’s lead hazards. After Aidan returned to the hospital three years later, state Child Protective Services said Aidan couldn’t leave unless she provided a lead-free home, she recalled.
Branch broke her lease and moved in with family and later lived at a shelter.
Her rental company management, Ogden and Company, Inc., sued her and garnished her mother’s wages for years, since she had co-signed on the lease, she said.
"I broke my lease, but you almost killed my son," Branch said of her landlord. "So I figured we will be a little bit even."
Branch has since found a safe home and become an advocate for parents facing lead hazards, even spotlighting the issue while meeting President Joe Biden.
But her experience remains common in Milwaukee. More than half of city households rent — the highest percentage in the Midwest — and an estimated 200,000 aging housing units likely have paint made with lead, a neurotoxin that damages the brain and nervous system, especially in young children.
Homeowners can make their properties safer by removing lead paint, dust or water pipelines. But renters rely on landlords to take action. Landlords see few incentives to renovate on their own, and Milwaukee regulators — limited by budgets and state law — provide little oversight.
That reality reinforces deep racial and socioeconomic disparities in one of the nation’s most segregated cities.
Tenants may risk retaliation if they complain about unaddressed lead hazards, said Richard Diaz, a co-founder of the Milwaukee-based Coalition on Lead Emergency.
"You hear the same story, just time and time again," Diaz said. "Kids lead poisoned, landlord doesn't care, they get evicted."