Theme of Connecting home, health, and You highlights how fixing hazards in homes improves residents’ health while improving access to safe, affordable healthy housing across the nation.
Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) kicks off activities for this year’s National Healthy Homes Month (NHHM), an annual campaign highlighting the direct link between housing quality and residents’ health.
National Healthy Homes Month serves to educate families and communities about the importance of creating and maintaining a healthy home by addressing home-based hazards, including reducing moisture and mold, improving ventilation, controlling pests, and maintaining indoor air quality.
This year’s theme of Connecting home, health, and YOU, highlights the link between housing quality and health, and is designed to raise awareness of the need to lower costs for families by preventing injury and illnesses, improving and preserving the supply of affordable housing, and improving the quality of life for vulnerable populations. To learn more about NHHM 2023, including themes, and resources available, and to subscribe for updates, please visit the website at NHHM homepage.
“This month, we are reminded that everyone in this country deserves to be safe and healthy in their homes,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “HUD and our many partners are working together to protect vulnerable residents from lead exposure and other home health hazards.”
A significant highlight of NHHM will be the opening of the nomination process for the new HUD Secretary’s Award for Excellence in Healthy Homes. For the first time, the competition will select one recipient (organization, group, or an individual) who best exemplifies the holistic approach required to create a healthy home culture. Nomination period and website will go live on June 5th, 2023, by 10am. It will be accessible via: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/healthy_homes.
As part of HUD’s commitment to ensure healthy homes, we have recently announced two historic Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) that will make homes healthier and safer for low-income families.
The first NOFO provides over $700 million in grants to state and local governments for improving health and safety in privately-owned older (pre-1978) homes of low-income families under HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Grant Program – one of the largest health and safety investments to date for privately-owned housing. Applications are due June 14. You can download the application package from this program’s website on Grants.gov.
The second NOFO provides $50 million to assist communities in building the capacity needed to operate a full-scale lead hazard control and healthy homes program, under HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Capacity Building Grant Program, a program developed in direct response to feedback from communities. Applications are due June 27. You can download the application package from this program’s website on Grants.gov.
Additional funding opportunities, including the Healthy Homes Production Grant Program and the Older Adult Home Modification Grant Program, will be announced soon. You will find descriptions of these programs, when they are announced, through HUD’s Funding Opportunities homepage.
To learn more about NHHM 2023, please visit the NHHM 2023 website at the NHHM homepage.