Monday, January 29, 2007

ST. LOUIS, MO – U.S. Senator Kit Bond today visited North St. Louis where he toured homes that are part of the Grace Hill Lead Remediation program. Bond met with families participating in the program and reviewed Grace Hill’s progress.

“Thanks to Grace Hill’s innovative program, in St. Louis the number of children at risk has decreased and more houses are now safe,” said Bond.

Bond congratulated Grace Hill for designing and implementing a model lead paint remediation program. He stressed that by focusing on primary prevention for pregnant women and their babies, the Grace Hill model has transformed the lead paint remediation process. For the first time, the objective is to find and remove lead paint problems before children are poisoned.

By focusing efforts in the zip codes with the highest incidence of lead paint poisoning, this program will significantly impact childhood lead paint poisoning rates in St. Louis, said Bond.

As then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds housing, Senator Bond and his colleague, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, created and funded an initiative at HUD that has provided $150 million over the last three years for lead abatement in cities with the worst lead paint problems. As part of the Bond-Mikulski Lead Initiative, the St. Louis program has received almost $7 million for Lead Safe St. Louis, the city’s program to make St. Louis lead-free.

In 2003, Bond challenged Mayor Slay to make St. Louis lead-free by 2010. Mayor Slay enthusiastically accepted the challenge. Since that time, Bond has pledged and delivered an additional $15 million in federal funds for Grace Hill Neighborhood Health Center.

The money Bond delivered to Grace Hill had significant strings attached, specifically, 6000 families were to be served with lead prevention training and clinical services, and 900 homes remediated. Bond praised Grace Hill for not only meeting, but being on track to exceed the ambitious goal. He emphasized that HUD reports that their best programs deliver 30 remediated homes a quarter—Grace Hill is remediating nearly that many homes each month.

“This is great news for families in St. Louis that want a safe, healthy place to raise their children,” said Bond.