Contact: Rebecca Morley, 443.539.4159
rmorley@centerforhealthyhousing.org
or
Iris Skinner, 410.715.7427
iskinner@enterprisecommunity.org 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 EPA Recognizes the 2006 Children's Environmental
Health Excellence Award Recipients

National Center for Healthy Housing and Enterprise Community Partners Receive Award

COLUMBIA, Md., April 20, 2006 – The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) and Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) were honored with the 2006 Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award. Created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP), the award raises awareness and highlights the importance of protecting children from environmental hazards. 

NCHH and Enterprise were one of 14 individuals and organizations from across the country to receive the award, which was presented today at a special ceremony at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C.  The awards are designed to increase awareness, stimulate activity, and recognize efforts that protect children from environmental health risks at the local, regional, national and international level.

"Every day, thousands of children are cared for in home-based child care settings. Our Home-Based Child Care Lead Safety Program showed that child care providers can improve the health and well-being of children by taking preventive steps in the homes where they provide child care," said NCHH Executive Director, Rebecca Morley.  "Because some providers offer care to as many as a dozen children, the program is a highly cost-effective way to protect children from environmental health and safety hazards. "

This is the second year OCHP has given the Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award. Last year, NCHH received an Environmental Health Recognition Award for its work to protect children from environmental health hazards. EPA established OCHP in May 1997 to make the protection of children's health a fundamental goal of public health and environmental protection in the United States. OCHP supports and facilitates agency efforts to protect children's health from environmental threats.

 "Enterprise is committed to providing safe environments for children," said Patricia Magnuson, the Enterprise director who manages its child care initiatives.  "This is a model program that can be used in home-based child care centers across the country to ensure children are cared for in a healthy learning environment."

The Home-Based Child Care Lead Safety Program was created to provide a healthy and safe environment for children.  From 2003 to 2005, the Home-Based Child Care Lead Safety Program created 25 healthy and safe child care homes in Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., that minimized the risk of unintentional injury and lead poisoning, while improving energy efficiency and indoor air quality.  The pilot, funded through a $930,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Operation Lead Elimination Action Program and more than $346,000 in public and private funds, investigated the obstacles to serving home-based child care centers and now provides a model and document templates to facilitate replication in other communities.

The pilot's local community development corporate partners, Home HeadQuarters, Inc. in Syracuse and NeighborWorks Rochester, managed construction.  Local child care partners were Child Care Solutions in Syracuse and the Rochester Children's Nursery Family Child Care Satellite Network provided education and outreach to providers.  Health departments in both counties, as well as the FingerLakesRegionalLeadTreatmentCenter, educated parents and provided blood lead testing.

Low-income, home-based child care providers often live in older housing at risk for unsafe conditions, such as lead-based paint hazards, that need safety-related repairs. While Onondaga County's rate of lead poisoning was four times greater than the national rate of 2.2 percent, it dropped from 10.2 percent in 2000 to a provisional 3.5 percent in 2005 as a result of efforts from the Home-Based Child Care Lead Safety Program, the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County's HUD-funded Lead Hazard Control Programs, and the Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative. Similarly, Monroe County dropped from 1,086 children with blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter in 2000 to 740 in federal fiscal year 2005 as a result of this program, the City of Rochester's and Monroe County's Lead Hazard Control Program, and the work of the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning.

Some environmental health risks are mitigated by Enterprise's Green Communities Initiative, a five-year, $550 million initiative to build more than 8,500 environmentally healthy homes for low-income families.  Created by Enterprise in partnership with the National Resources Defense Council along with NCHH, Green Communities supports affordable housing that promotes health, conserves energy and natural resources, and provides easy access to jobs, schools and services.

To learn more about the Children's Environmental Health Excellence Award, visit EPA at www.epa.gov/children. For more information about the Home-Based Child Care Lead Safety Program, visit NCHH at http://www.centerforhealthyhousing.org/html/leap.html.

NationalCenter for Healthy Housing is the only national non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting practical measures to protect children from residential environmental hazards while preserving affordable housing. NCHHstaff are seasoned professionals in research and evaluation, technical assistance, training, and education and outreach as it relates to housing and health. NCHH seeks to find scientifically valid and practical strategies to make homes safe from hazards, to alert low- income families about housing-related health risks, and to help them protect their children. NCHH also works with governmental and non-governmental organizations to develop standards and programs and guide their implementation through insurers, lenders, federal and state laws and regulations, community organizations, and the courts.

Enterprise Community Partners, formerly The Enterprise Foundation,is a leading provider of the development capital and expertiseit takes to create decent, affordable homes and rebuild communities. For more than two decades, Enterprise has pioneered neighborhood solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and others that share our vision. Enterprise has raised and invested $7 billion in equity, grants and loans and is currently investing in communities at a rate of $1 billion a year. Visit www.enterprisecommunity.org to learn more about Enterprise's efforts to build communities and opportunity, and to meet some of the half a million people we have helped.