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HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction grant program and the hazards of government autopilot

The NOFA for HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction (LHR) grant program just came out, and it has $275 million to undertake, as usual, “comprehensive programs to identify and control lead-based paint hazards in eligible privately-owned target housing.” LHR NOFAs are issued every year or two, which is fine, but those of you who are alive and able to read or access the Internet are probably aware that there’s another health hazard out there this year, and it’s a health hazard that’s probably more urgent than lead-based paint—lead-based paint has been illegal in the US since 1980 and HUD’s been funding LHR grants for at least 30 years (we know, because we’ve written so many funded LHR proposals). It’s hard to believe that there’re all that many housing units left in the US with lead-based paint, but HUD soldiers on.

Sure, lead is a health hazard, but COVID-19 is also a health hazard; if I had to bet which one most persons would consider more hazardous right now, I’d bet on COVID-19. $275 million may be a small amount of money by federal standards, but I wonder how much the staff at HUD thought about whether public housing authorities (PHAs) and cities want to work on lead abatement this year, versus how much they’d like and need to work on COVID-19 abatement; $275 million can buy a lot of masks, education, and tests (although tests are still in short supply right now). It’s not really the fault of HUD bureaucrats, since LHR grants have been authorized by Congress for for decades and Congress usually just keeps funding programs like this, no matter what’s going on in the real world. Nonetheless, it would seem to me that a simple, bipartisan vote to amend the underlying legislation would be relatively easy—instead, LHR, at this point, is indicative of the dangers of government autopilot. Autopilot is fine in clear, consistent weather, but it can be disastrous during unpredictable storms—and the world has been hit by a storm in 2020.

I’m not presenting an argument against lead-hazard control: I don’t know enough to say whether lead-hazard control remains, in the absence of a pandemic, a (relatively) good idea or a (relatively—compared to other health-related activities) bad idea. I’ll posit, however, that a lot more people are going to die and suffer from COVID-19 this year, than will die or suffer from lead-based paint, and the failure to change course in the face of new events is evidence of deeper malaise.

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