The Rental Property Owners Association (RPOA), in collaboration with the Healthy Homes Coalition and the City of Grand Rapids, is holding a special seminar entitled "Protect Your Rental Properties from Lead Based Paint Liabilities" April 22 at 6:00pm. The seminar will be held at DeVos Place (room Monroe B) in Grand Rapids.
The seminar is being held in response to the new federal Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule that will go into effect that day, as well as the recent Federal lawsuit against two Grand Rapids landlords for non-compliance with federal housing regulations.
GRAND RAPIDS - A full-day training for nurses and other health professionals will be held at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College. Come learn more about what you can do to help prevent childhood lead poisoning in our community!
6.5 contact hours for nurses pending with the Wisconsin Nurses Association.
Beginning April 2010, all renovators, remodelers and painters working in pre-1978 housing will be required to be an EPA-certified renovator trained in lead safe work practices. This requirement will apply 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 will also be required to have this certification.
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 once again commencing radon testing services for the 2009-2010 season. Test kits can be purchased at Healthy Homes for $5.00, or can be provided free of charge as part of the Healthy Homes CLEARCorps program.
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.
