The Philadelphia Housing Authority has been selected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as the only housing authority to receive a prestigious “Healthy Homes” grant.
The grant will pay for activities to correct safety and health hazards that produce asthma, lead poisoning and allergies in children of low-income families. PHA is one of only five recipients of this grant nationwide.
PHA Executive Director Carl Greene participated in The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Promote Healthy Homes in Washington, DC today, meeting briefly with Acting Surgeon General Steven Galson.
“It is a great honor to receive this grant and, more importantly, it is a great boost to supporting healthy homes in Philadelphia. We appreciate the administration recognizing our effort to create a healthier environment for children living in public housing and look forward to continuing this important work,” said PHA Executive Director Carl Greene.
The $871,664 grant will cover the cost of activities over the next three years that will help Housing Choice Voucher landlords make their properties safer, as well as scattered sites owned by the housing authority. The focus will be on families with children under six years old with clinically diagnosed asthma.
The latest round of the “Healthy Homes” program at PHA will run until the end of April 2012. PHA will again partner with Drexel University, Tenant Support Services, Inc., and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health during this second round of the program.
In addition, PHA will contribute $90,000 over the next three years to train participants in the agency’s Pre-Apprenticeship Program to perform hazard remediation activities, such as tile installation in place of carpets that retain asthma “triggers.”
PHA’s “Healthy Homes” program is also a job creation program. The funding provided by the grant will employ a program coordinator, a project manager, tradesmen for day-to-day activities, and subcontractors to provide outreach, recruitment, enrollment, data collection and repairs to eliminate or reduce hazards. Drexel will train outreach workers for the program while TSSI will employ those workers. PHA’s goal is to enroll 200 families in the program.
“This program has the double benefit of promoting healthier homes and a healthier economy. It will allow us to create new jobs for Philadelphia’s workers while ensuring better living conditions for the city’s children,” Greene said.
PHA’s goal through the duration of the program is to show ways to cost-effectively reduce conditions in properties that “trigger” asthma, and cause lead poisoning and allergies in children of low-income families.
The first round of the program was conducted between 2005-2008 in conjunction with Drexel University’s School of Public Health and has generated research that was presented by Hernando R. Perez, Assistant Professor of Public Health at Drexel, at the 2008 Indoor Air Conference in Copenhagen.
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