Funding to make low-income families’ homes safer and healthier
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded nearly $165 million to 44 state and local government agencies in 23 states to protect children and families from lead-based paint and home health hazards.
HUD is providing these grants through its Lead Based Paint Hazard Reduction (LBPHR) Grant Program to identify and clean up dangerous lead in low-income families’ homes. These grants also include more than $17 million from HUD’s Healthy Homes Supplemental funding to help communities with housing-related health and safety hazards in addition to lead-based paint hazards.
These investments will protect families and children by targeting significant lead and health hazards in over 14,000 low-income homes for which other resources are not available.
“Today, we are renewing our commitment to improving the lives of families, and especially, their children by creating safer and healthier homes,” said HUD Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson. “At HUD, one of our main priorities is to protect families from lead-based paint and other health hazards, and these grants will help states and local communities do precisely that.”
“There is a strong connection between health and housing,” said Michelle Miller, Acting Director of HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. “These grants provide a critical resource to communities to identify and clean up housing-based health hazards such as from lead-based paint and mold.”
HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes promotes local efforts to eliminate dangerous lead paint and other housing-related health hazards from lower income homes; stimulates private sector investment in lead hazard control; supports cutting-edge research on methods for assessing and controlling housing-related health and safety hazards; and educates the public about the dangers of hazards in the home. Read a complete project-by-project summary of the programs awarded grants today.
The following is a state-by-state breakdown of the funding announced today (15 communities are first-time HUD lead hazard control grantees).