Cleveland Code Enforcement Training Guide

About This Resource

Throughout 2024, the Center for Community Progress worked with the City of Cleveland to develop this training curriculum for inspectors and staff of the City’s Division of Code Enforcement.

The City of Cleveland’s Code Enforcement team is a national leader in many aspects of code enforcement, including its approach to vacant properties. We applaud its desire and leadership in building out a more comprehensive code enforcement training that other communities around the country can look to as a model.

Community Progress hopes this training curriculum provides valuable ideas and direction for the City to move as it works towards a comprehensive training strategy for its Code Enforcement team and we thank all those who contributed to the success of this engagement.

Training Curriculum Framework Overview

This training curriculum equips Code Enforcement team members with core competencies and skills required to secure compliance with state and local property maintenance standards.

Developed by Community Progress in partnership with the City of Cleveland’s Division of Code Enforcement (situated in the Department of Buildings and Housing and referred to as “Code Enforcement” throughout this document), this curriculum embeds a strategic approach in the department’s operations and strengthen inspectors’ ability to achieve equitable outcomes.

Assumptions

The following assumptions guided the development of this curriculum:

1. The curriculum is primarily geared toward new inspectors and inspectors staffed to the Housing Bureau.
2. The curriculum does not cover tailored recommendations for more senior inspectors responsible for new construction and/or permitting inspections.
3. The curriculum does not include specific guidance for Administrative Units, but encourages their participation in many parts of each module for enhanced cohesion. Opportunities exist to develop written policies and procedures (or SOPs) for Administrative Units, and to identify additional training on tasks like how to conduct title searches and skip tracing.

Scope

The curriculum is geared towards inspectors focused on “traditional” code enforcement—inspecting and enforcing property maintenance and housing code violations, which is a function of Code Enforcement’s Housing Bureau.

While Community Progress provides these recommendations, we recognize that capacity constraints exist and ever-shifting priorities and processes require Code Enforcement to prioritize their implementation. We encourage the City to implement the training curriculum below in close consultation with its attorneys.

As the City contemplates the following framework for a comprehensive training program, it should be proud that its efforts to train on topics that go beyond the typical technical and legal content could be used as a national model for the field.

Curriculum Structure

The curriculum emphasizes voluntary compliance and consists of five modules, which can be downloaded individually below:

1. Establishing the Purpose of Code Compliance
2. Technical Knowledge, Codes, and Processes
3. Critical Skills Development: Problem-Solving, Conflict Resolution, Equity, and More
4. Coordinating with Internal City Partners
5. Coordinating with External Public and Community Partners

Download the Full Curriculum »