Thomas Breen file photo
A lead paint-chipped windowsill in Fair Haven.
Lead paint hazards will be removed from 200 more New Haven homes — and 130 local contractors, maintenance workers, and landlords will receive training in how to do that children’s-health-protecting work — now that the city has been awarded a new $7.7 million federal grant.
Mayor Justin Elicker, city Health Director Maritza Bond, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, State Rep. Pat Dillon, Edgewood Alder Evette Hamtilon, and a handful of other city, state, and federal representatives celebrated that new infusion of public-health funds during a Friday afternoon press conference held outside of 1401 Ella T. Grasso Blvd.
The cause for celebration was the city’s recent receipt of a new three-and-a-half-year, $7.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Lead-Based-Paint Hazard Reduction Program.
The grant comes amid National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, during which city health officials Bond and Rafael Ramos and their team have stepped up their public outreach around how best to protect children under six from ingesting chipping and flaking lead paint, which can cause lifelong development delays, lowered IQs, and attention deficits. That outreach has included “wet cleaning” demonstrations and giveaways, “healthy homes” workshops for homeowners, reading aloud to school kids stories that raise awareness, promoting a public-facing online dashboard about elevated blood lead cases around town, and the erection of lawn signs in neighborhoods throughout the city with information about how to prevent lead poisoning of children.
Health Director Bond (center) at Friday's presser.
On Friday, Elicker and Bond spoke about how this new $7.7 million grant will go a long way towards helping protect even more New Haven children from such eminently preventable harm.
“New Haven has the highest standard in the state as far as lead remediation,” Elicker said about the local threshold of 5 micrograms per deciliter that triggers city action to protect children with elevated blood lead levels. (Click here to read about a 2021 settlement of a child-lead-poisoning class action lawsuit filed by legal aid lawyers against the previous mayoral administration around this very issue of when the city health department should act.)
This $7.7 million grant will allow New Haven to “bolster our current efforts [and] eliminate lead hazards in 200 housing units” and also “train and certify over 130 contractors, maintenance workers, and property owners” in how to abate lead hazards themselves, Elicker said.
Bond said that these new funds build off of a $5.6 million federal grant that the city received in 2019 that has led to the lead-hazard remediation of 251 local homes.
If your house was built before 1978, Bond said, which is when the federal government finally outlawed lead in house paint, “be proactive,” apply for these funds, and do what you can to ensure that your house is lead safe.
“Lead stops the brain from growing and developing,” Blumenthal said. “What we’re doing here is saving kids from the slowing down of their development that lead causes.”
Hamilton agreed. “We are grateful for another arsenal to protect children and families in our city.”
Click here to watch a video recording of Friday’s press conference in full.
The federal and/or state government should give out free lead paint test kits to anyone on Section 8 or other housing assistance, and then have financial assistance programs to abate lead from all of those homes. We haven’t used lead paint in decades, so abating it from homes for once and for all, would then positively impact the developing brains and lives of millions of children in our county.