A lead abatement consent decree and more

The Department of Justice has won a consent decree against a Minnesota landlord, VTF Properties, for lead hazard abatement. The terms are set out pretty well in the Federal Register notice and might be worth looking over. Among them is this rather sad provision:

...The schedule for hazard abatement will be accelerated to require completion of abatement in any unit within five months of Defendant learning about the presence of a child with an elevated blood-lead level (in addition to the requirement to comply immediately with any abatement order issued by a local government which requires any immediate measures to protect a poisoned child)...

Also in federal announcements:

- Cutoff day is coming for Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the expensive San Francisco Bay Area. Some have applied for extensions, which they may or may not get.

- Comment requests today: the request for termination of multifamily mortgage insurance and information collections linked to the Housing for Older Persons Act that exempts seniors-only rules from the housing discrimination laws.