Fed funds to aid lead-paint removal in city homes

City officials and home safety advocates say a recently-awarded $2.4 million federal grant will help up to 175 Boston households remove dangerous levels of lead paint from their homes.

Mayor Thomas Menino announced that Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) won the competitive federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development earlier this month and will make lead removal services available at no cost to low and middle-income families, as well as landlords who rent to lower-income residents.

The removal program will be managed by DND’s Boston Home Center division as part of a continuing effort to lower the presence of lead in Boston’s housing stock, which has historically had some of the highest incidence rates of elevated lead levels in the country due to the region’s older housing stock and varied climate.

“Despite the challenge of being a city with older housing stock and weather extremes, we continue to make great progress in the reduction of childhood lead poisoning in Boston,” Menino said in a written statement. “This money will allow us to make more homes safe and healthy for Boston families.”

Boston Home Center assistant director Richard O’Brien said lead abatement has been a major focus for DND and that the city’s efforts have been nationally recognized 12 times since the program began in 1993.

“We are the most successful program for [HUD] funds,” O’Brien said, adding that city programs have removed lead from nearly 3,000 housing units with at-risk children since 1993.

Boston Healthy Schools and Homes project manager Davida Andelman said that while the use of lead paint was banned in 1978, many homeowners in Dorchester, Mattapan, and East Boston are either unaware of the risk or cannot afford to pay for lead abatement out-of-pocket.

“Our main concern is that 95 percent of our housing stock was built before [the ban,]” Andelman said. “In this environment, people are trying to keep their homes and pay off mortgages, dealing with issues of lead is not going to be their number one priority.”

Andelman said the additional abatement funding could not come at a better time, noting that her organization and similar nonprofits are struggling to stay afloat as the continued recession limits the amount of grant money available.

“We have been a supporter and partner with the city and we are pleased the city has received this funding,” Andelman said. “A lot of nonprofit, community-based organizations are struggling right now, this work is getting much more difficult to do.”

According to the BHSH, annual instances of children with elevated blood-lead levels have dropped from 6,000 in 1993 to about 200 in 2010. Despite these promising statistics, Andelman said reports of real estate agents failing to tell families about the presence of lead in rental units and efforts by some homeowners to renovate their previously lead-abated homes continue to put the public at risk.

“In no way, shape, or form can we rest on our laurels and say our work is done,” Andelman said.


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