FROM HUD EMAIL DISTRIBUTION

WASHINGTON – Despite our important focus on COVID-19, lead safety in the home remains a high priority for all Americans. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is joining the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and additional partners, in highlighting this issue during National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (NLPPW) 2020. 

Lead poisoning is only detectable by blood testing and to create more awareness, NLPPW’s main themes are: Get the Facts, Get Your Home Tested, and Get Your Child Tested.

“National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week is one of our most important educational campaigns,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “Many residents and maintenance workers don’t know the risks when performing renovations and lead repair work in older homes. By providing families, public housing staff, contractors, and others with this basic information we can eliminate lead-related health hazards and protect American families.”

To help commemorate the week, the Federal partners released a comprehensive digital toolkit, in English and Spanish as well as a special webinar program with leading experts. The webinars include sessions on how to safely renovate and repair, and lead poisoning prevention efforts during COVID-19.

Lead can be found in many things, but the main hazard to young children is from lead paint hazards in homes built before 1978. Adults and children can become lead poisoned, but children experience a greater degree of harm due to their developing bodies and brains.

HUD and its partners are targeting their NLPPW outreach to broad audiences.  These includes lead poisoning prevention and healthy homes advocates; state and local health, environmental health, and housing departments; building inspectors and code enforcement officers; lead hazard control grantees; university educators; and others.  These stakeholders play a key role in helping to spread the word within their local communities, and taking steps aimed at lead poisoning prevention. To register for the webinar and to download the toolkits, visit: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/healthy_homes/nlppw

Great Plains Housing Authority will close the offices on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 for training. GPHA will resume normal business hours on Thursday, October 29, 2020.

The HOME Security Deposit program is ending after decades of helping households throughout our region. The state chose to allocate the funds to other projects and allowed Great Plains Housing Authority extra time to assist clients. ND Commerce allocated $50,000 to GPHA for security deposits this year. The extra allocation helped house numerous households during the pandemic.

GPHA removed the deposit application form from the website and office areas, but will honor any outstanding forms until all funds are gone.

Great Plains Housing Authority, ND Commerce, and others are actively searching for new funding and tools to assist low-income families secure safe, decent, and affordable housing solutions.

Residents of Stutsman County are asked to participate in a survey to help the County to continue providing safe communities in times of hazards or disasters.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requires an update to the Stutsman County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan every five years, and receiving public input is a part of that process. The survey should be completed by residents of Stutsman County.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Stutsman_Mitigation_Survey

Please see attached flyer for the Stutsman County Salvation Army Christmas Assistance program.

Free meals will be available for all school kids through the end of this school year, after the federal government announced it is extending the plan beyond the initial end date of Dec. 31.

The action was taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure student access to nutritious food during the pandemic.

The free meals are available whether a student is attending school in person or remotely.

Grand Forks high school students, who come to school for face-to-face learning on alternate days, may pick up meals at their school on their at-home days.

The extension of the free meals waiver, announced recently by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, is an unprecedented move that reflects the USDA’s “unwavering commitment to ensuring all children have access to nutritious food as the nation recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a government news release.

“As our nation recovers and reopens, we want to ensure that children continue to receive the nutritious breakfasts and lunches they count on during the school year wherever they are and however they are learning,” Perdue said.

“We are grateful for the heroic efforts by our school food service professionals who are consistently serving healthy meals to kids during these trying times, and we know they need maximum flexibility right now,” he said.

Until this recent USDA action was taken, the free meals had been set to expire Dec. 31. The new flexibilities waiver will provide no-cost meals to all children at more than 90,000 sites across the country through June 30.

https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/education/6713603-Free-meals-for-school-children-extended-to-end-of-school-year

The annual DSHA Board meeting will be Wednesday, October 21 via conference call. Call in is 1-855-212-0212 with meeting ID 133-588-794