HUD Funding Available to Help Correct Health and Safety Hazards

HUD will be awarding grants totaling $19.6 million to prevent and correct housing-related health and safety hazards in low-income housing and to support programs for the control of asthma among residents in federally assisted multifamily housing.

HUD is making these grants available through four different programs. Application deadlines for all grants are coming up in November. According to HUD's Deputy Secretary Ron Sims, more than six-million families in the U.S. live in homes with moderate to severe physical housing problems, which is why the agency is focusing on helping to create home living environments that are safe and healthy.

Four Programs Offering Grants

HUD estimates that it will award grants in the following four programs to approximately 33 recipients, with each grant ranging from $250,000 to $1 million. Applications may be downloaded from Web links provided on HUD's Funds Available Web site at www.hud.gov/offices/adm/grants/fundsavail.cfm.

Healthy Homes Production Program—$10 million. This is a new “production-oriented” grant program, modeled after the previously successful Healthy Homes Demonstration and Lead Hazard Control grant programs. Grants under this program will enable public and private grantees to address multiple housing-related hazards at the same time. The program complements other HUD efforts to mitigate multiple hazards efficiently, such as the agency's Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, begun earlier this year to make healthy and green retrofits in low-income housing in 14 communities by meshing separate agencies’ and philanthropic resources.

Application Due Date: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.

Asthma Interventions in Public and Assisted Multifamily Housing Grant Program—$2.6 million. These new grants will develop, implement, and evaluate multifaceted programs for the control of asthma among residents of federally assisted multifamily housing. HUD is targeting asthma because it's a common illness that especially affects disadvantaged populations. Research has shown that multi-pronged interventions, such as reducing exposure to environmental triggers, can help control the disease.

Application Due Date: Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010.

Lead Technical Studies Grant Program—$1 million. These grants will further previous research grants that have provided health and housing professionals with knowledge on how to reduce the number of lead-poisoned children. They are critical for achieving the goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning as a major public health problem.

Application Due Date: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.

Healthy Homes Technical Studies Grant Program—$6 million. These grants will help develop and improve low-cost methods for identifying and reducing housing-related hazards. They will improve our understanding of the relationship between the residential exposures of children or other vulnerable populations and illness or injury.

Application Due Date: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.