Puerto Rico gets $3.5M from HUD to reduce lead hazards in homes
The Puerto Rico Public Housing Administration has received $3,520,080 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “to make low-income families’ homes safer and healthier” through the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction grant program.
In total, the federal agency allocated nearly $140 million to 36 state and local government agencies in 19 states to protect people from lead-based paint hazards and other home health hazards.
HUD is providing these grants through its Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction program and its new Lead Hazard Reduction Capacity Building grant program to identify and clean up dangerous health hazards.
These grants include more than $10 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. However, Puerto Rico did not receive any funding through that program.
The investments aim to protect families and children by controlling lead and health hazards in more than 3,400 low-income homes for which other resources are not available, HUD officials said.
The Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction grant program has two categories of competitive grants. It awards seven Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control grants open to local governments and most states and 21 Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration grants. The latter is open to local governments with large numbers of older homes, which are more likely to have lead-based paint hazards, and most states.
The Lead Hazard Reduction Capacity Building grant program is awarding eight smaller competitive grants to state and local governments that have not had Lead Hazard Reduction grants. The initiative aims to help them develop the necessary infrastructure and capacity to undertake larger programs in future years, HUD stated.
