Officials in the District of Columbia failed to spend $3 million in federal lead remediation grants, The Washington Post reports. As a result, the city is ineligible for additional money and a program to protect poor children from lead poisoning was shut down. Officials blamed the federal government for imposing too many restrictions; however, dozens of cities across the U.S. received lead remediation grants without similar issues. D.C. is one of only a few cities that became ineligible for grant money because of poor performance.
The District has a variety of programs to eliminate lead dangers, including for homeowners, public housing tenants and building owners. The Lead Safe Washington program, financed by the HUD grants, targeted low-income renters in apartment buildings until it shut down last summer. From the beginning, the program struggled to take off.
In 2015, the federal agency warned the city that it was failing to spend enough money and placed a $3.7 million grant on high-risk status. The city proposed fixing 225 units with that money. But quarter after quarter, the District fell far below its targets and ended up rehabilitating just 41 units, according to documents provided under a records request.
In fiscal year 2018, the city received 21 applications through Lead Safe Washington but started work on few of them within the six-month target, according to budget documents. City officials said the applicants had a hard time pulling together the necessary paperwork to demonstrate eligibility.
“Although HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes provided ongoing technical assistance to address performance barriers identified throughout the grant, the grantee was not able to meet their grant program goals and benchmarks,” spokesman Brian Sullivan said in a statement. “We look forward to the District applying for future funding when they are eligible again” in 2020.
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