GRAND RAPIDS – A coalition of 24 community organizations presented a position paper to the Grand Rapids City Commission on September 27 calling for cooperation to address growing housing concerns as a result of the recent changes in the real estate market.
A new report prepared by the Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health, of which the Healthy Homes Coalition is a member, reports estimates the annual environmentally attributable costs of lead poisoning at $3.2 - $4.85 billion for Michigan residents.
Beginning April 22, all renovators, remodelers and painters working in pre-1978 housing are now required to be an EPA-certified renovator trained in lead safe work practices. This requirement applies to all renovation projects, not just lead abatement. Effected trades include remodelers, renovators, window replacement workers, painters, electricians, plumbers, and any other trades that disturb painted surfaces during the course of their work. Landlords who make repairs themselves are also required to have this certification.
The Healthy Homes Coalition will be hosting their Annual Meeting 4:30pm Thursday, August 5.
Get the Lead Out! and Healthy Homes are the cover story for the MiBiz Sustainability Report for this quarter.
National and Local Experts Urge Lead Poisoning Testing For Children.
50% of children in Grand Rapids are not being tested for lead poisoning at the critical ages of 1 and 2.
GRAND RAPIDS – The Grand Rapids Get The Lead Out! campaign has been successful on many fronts. The number of homes having lead based paint abated is increasing. Yet an alarming number of children are not being tested for lead poisoning at the critical ages of 1 and 2.
“In children, lead can cause nervous system and kidney damage, learning disabilities, speech, language problems, decreased muscle and bone growth and hearing damage,” said Joan Dyer-Zykowski, Kent County Health Department Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program Manager. "The majority of children lead poisoned in Grand Rapids are between one and two years old."
The City of Grand Rapids Get the Lead Out! program is offering free lead training for professionals seeking to enter the lead hazard control, abatement and assessment fields. This is an opportunity for small business owners from the affected communities to receive free training to make them eligible for lead hazard control work funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The Healthy Homes Coalition is partnering with Home Repair Services to provide a Lead Safe Painting and Home Repair workshop for do-it-yourself home owners interested in making home repairs in a lead-safe fashion.
The Detroit Free Press published an indepth article on Sunday, May 16 that looks at the link between lead and learning. The article features a look at children's blood lead levels relative to their performance on MEAP scores later in life.
The US-EPA has launched a portal on its website where homeowners can find contractors who have been trained and certified in how to safely make repairs so that children are not exposed to lead hazards. The searchable database can be accessed by clicking here.
Come learn how the healthy Homes Coalition helps parents protect children from environmental health hazards in the home by joining us for a Building Healthy Homes Tour. These brief lunch hour or end of the day tours are a wonderful chance for you to hear some real stories about the work that we do at Healthy Homes.
Reserve your space today by calling (616) 241-3300 or emailing us.
Click on the title above to learn more and to see other future tour dates for summer 2010!
The Healthy Homes Coalition was recently awarded $26,248 in FEMA funding to make sure families with children have working carbon monoxide and smoke detectors in their homes. This award will allow Healthy Homes to serve 400 families!
The Healthy Homes Coalition is a new non-profit that is seeking to eliminate housing conditions in west Michigan that harm children's health. The Coalition is an outgrowth of the successful Get the Lead Out! campaign, and was incorporated in the summer of 2006 to sustain the effort to end childhood lead poisoning in Grand Rapids and to apply lessons learned in lead to other children's environmental health issues.
Our work has its roots in the inception of the Get the Lead Out! collaborative, which was formed in 2001 in response to local data that called out the environmental injustice of childhood lead poisoning in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2000, 559 Kent County children 0-5 years of age were identified with elevated blood lead levels. More than 90% of those children lived in the City of Grand Rapids. More than 90% were low-income (Medicaid). And the vast majority were children of color. A map similar to the one on this page showed the huge disparity. In the north end of the Baxter neighborhood, two out of every five children tested that year had elevated blood lead levels!
The Get the Lead Out! collaborative was facilitated as a pilot project of the Community Leadership Institute at Aquinas College. As the pilot phase came to an end in 2005, collaboration leaders met to plan for the future. Even though the incidence of childhood lead poisoning in Grand Rapids' neighborhoods was cut by 60%, the group decided that the work to end childhood lead poisoning needed to continue, and that we needed to take lessons learned from the successful Get the Lead Out! campaign and apply them to other children's environmental health issues.
To sustain these efforts, the Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan was incorporated as a non-profit organization with the State of Michigan in August 2006, the same year that the Get the Lead Out! campaign was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with a Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award. Shortly thereafter the organization secured its tax-exempt status with the IRS.
Today, Healthy Homes focuses on childhood lead poisoning, carbon monoxide and radon. We are building a strong, solid foundation to eliminate these threats and continue to build our comprehensive approach to ensuring that children's homes are healthy and free from environmental harm.
Consider joining us and being a part of our future!
Making sure children grow up in homes that are healthy and safe is everyone’s job! The Healthy Homes Coalition is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Learn more about specific ways you can help protect children. Connect with us today!
742 Franklin St. SE // Grand Rapids, MI 49507 // 616.241.3300 p // 616.241.3327 f // info@healthyhomescoalition.org
Special thanks to the Dyer-Ives Foundation for their generous support of this website. © 2006-2010 Healthy Homes Coalition.
