What NCHH Does 

Our mission is to ensure that everyone has a safe and healthy home. With more than six million families living in substandard housing, we equip leaders across the public health, housing, and environmental sectors with the data, tools, policies, and best practices needed to improve housing quality in their communities. We channel the powerful energy and deep-rooted interests of the healthy housing movement into a force for change. Learn how you can be a part of this change.

 

Title X at 30: Opportunities for Refinement

Twenty Twenty-Two marked the 30th anniversary of the nation’s main lead poisoning prevention law, Title X of the 1992 Housing and Community Development Act. It was signed into law on October 28, 1992. Among other things, Title X authorized funds for the HUD lead grant programs (later expanded to fund other healthy homes issues), required lead inspections/risk assessments in federally assisted housing, required HUD and EPA to set up requirements for the disclosure of known lead-based paint in housing, and redefined the meaning of a “lead-based paint hazard” based on science.

The 30th anniversary of Title X is a perfect opportunity for policymakers in the executive branch, federal, state and local agencies, and Congress, and all of us in the advocacy/research space, to reflect on how far we’ve come and what needs to be done to address all lead hazards—including those in paint, dust, soil, water, and other sources—and finish the fight against [read more]….

How Innovative Communities Are Using ARPA Funds to Transform Housing and Address Environmental Hazards

When we first wrote last fall about the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), we highlighted the huge opportunity present in the flexible recovery funding that the law provides to state, territorial, city, county, and tribal governments. With broad categories of activities that funding could support, the specific mentions of lead poisoning prevention in the interim final rule, and decisions about how to prioritize spending left up to the recipients, ARPA represented a significant chance for communities to use new money to address environmental hazards in homes.

We’re now over 13 months from the law’s final passage, almost a year from when communities started being able to access the funds, and about eight months from that original blog post, and we’re thrilled to share that communities have seized the opportunity and are already implementing innovative ways to use the funding [read more]….

Inflation Reduction Act Includes New Funds for Climate Resiliency and Improved Indoor Air Quality in Homes

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, also known as H.R. 5376), newly passed by Congress and signed by President Biden today, is a groundbreaking step forward in efforts to combat climate change and improve healthcare. Included in its many measures are significant amounts of new funding to address health hazards in homes.

As readers of our blogs may know, earlier efforts to include healthy housing issues in the infrastructure bill failed, because housing was not perceived to be part of the traditional meaning of “infrastructure.” One notable exception was leaded water pipe replacement. Happily, this new IRA bill finally includes healthy housing issues. It’s a reflection of a new consensus that climate, housing, disparities, and health are all parts [read more]….