The city’s Health Department is planning to apply for $4.1 million in federal funding to help landlords pay for lead paint hazard abatement at 200 housing units throughout the city.
On Monday city Health Department Director Byron Kennedy submitted a resolution as a communication to the full Board of Alders that requested permission for the mayor, the Health Department, and the city’s anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), to submit applications for the money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes.
According to Kennedy, the city has received federal funding for this lead abatement program on six different occasions dating back to 1995. A Health Department narrative included in the current fiscal year’s budget notes that this HUD grant has allowed the department’s Bureau of Environmental Health to remove lead from 1,414 housing units by providing $8,929,508 in federal funds to New Haven homeowners dating back to 1995.
The narrative, which was put together for the mayor’s budget that was submitted to the Board of Alders at the beginning of March 2018, states that the Health Department seeks to abate an additional 200 housing units and still retains $1,113,609 for distribution to qualified homeowners. It states that the program offers up to $9,000 per unit as a 0 percent deferred interest forgivable loan to qualified homeowner recipients.
The Board of Alders received the Health Department’s communication Monday night stating the department’s intention to apply for the federal money. The communication states that the desired $4.1 million would cover a three-and-a-half year program, from Nov. 1, 2018 through Apr. 30, 2022. The deadline for the application is Aug. 2, 2018.
Click here to download the full communication.
The resolution presented to the board also notes that the city will match whatever federal contribution it receives by at least 10 percent of the total grant. Kennedy’s letter notes that the units covered by the grant-funded lead abatement program “are and continue to be available to low-income residents.”
The city’s Health Department has recently been at the center of a number of ongoing court cases related to the timeliness and thoroughness of the lead inspections, lead abatement plans, and post-abatement inspections.
I am confused. Is this money available to (a) absentee landlords/landlord who don't occupy a unit in the building to be abated: (b) owner-occupied units only; and/or (c) low-income owners only? Many of the problems seem to be middle-class landlords who own a few small buildings. They rent to low-income people, but the cost of abatement would be renting uneconomical, leading to higher rents that low-income folks could no longer afford, or, if there is no market for higher rents, abandonment.