 Okay good afternoon everyone thank you for joining us for a really significant and positive announcement. We have news to share. Today we are announcing that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded more than 3.6 million dollars to the City of Burlington to help protect low-income children and families from lead-based paint and from home health hazards. Our city's lead program will use this funding to address lead hazards in 110 homes here in Burlington and Winooski and help strengthen the culture of lead safety in our community. We've been fortunate to get these grants in the past and you can see the impact the Burlington lead program has has had in the years leading up until now. One of the ways is the home right behind me here is enrolled in the program and is one of the 675 homes where the Burlington lead program has reduced lead hazards since the program was founded in 2003. So this is something we've been doing now for approaching 20 years and this grant will take us through 20 years of work on lead in this community. I want to thank homeowner Scott Newman and and Caitlin O'Shea for making their home part of this event today and for participating in the program. So again that's 675 homes soon to be another 110 homes that have new doors and windows stabilized paint and children who will grow up without lead poisoning. I want to thank HUD for this award and the Vermont's federal delegation for their steadfast support for HUD and for the the lead program and lead funding and I want to say a big congratulations and thanks to CEDO the Community and Economic Development Office and the Burlington lead program that has worked so hard for so many years to improve those 675 homes and to keep these resources flowing into Burlington so that we can continue to help more households. We know that there are thousands of homes here in Burlington that have a history of lead paint and that can benefit from this program so the continued work continuing to keep this grant is critical. I want to recognize that the the lead lead team has continued to do this work during 2020 and the pandemic when they have also been pulled into the front lines of fighting against the coronavirus they have continued to advance this lead work and I want to thank Margaret for her leadership there and see Rebecca here who's played such a big role on this and Rachel is from the CJC but here a fellow member here helped and thank you to the lead team that has made made this possible. All Burlington families deserve homes that are safe healthy and affordable and our Burlington lead program is a critical part of the city's work to make that vision a reality. With this award that work will continue. Thank you. With that I'd like to turn over the podium to the HUD New England regional administrator David Tilly who's come up from Boston to join us in Burlington on this beautiful day. David welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Mr. Mayor. Good afternoon. It's a wonderful day beautiful day to be here in Burlington and before I begin I'd like to take a moment to introduce our new HUD State Director here in Vermont, Shawn Thomas. I want to we're very excited to have Shawn join our team to represent the people of Vermont. I want to thank Mayor Weinberger and his team for their outstanding work to make Burlington homes safe for families. HUD is proud to be your partner in this important work and I also wanted to thank our home owner Scott Newman and Caitlin O'Shea for welcoming us to their home. Had recently just had an opportunity to speak with them and their beautiful family and it's amazing what they've done with their 1900s home on not only helping to mitigate lead issues but also asbestos from the outside of this home and and really congratulate you on your home. Today I'm excited to announce that HUD is awarding more than 3.6 million in HUD funds to protect Burlington children and families from lead-based paint and home health hazards. With these funds 110 units of housing in Burlington will be made lead safe. Families deserve to live in homes safe from the hazards of lead, mold and other dangers and the good news about lead poisoning is that it is 100 preventable. By working together we can and will keep our children safe from the dangers of lead. Thank you very much and congratulations. Thank you for coming out on this beautiful fall day. I've been lucky to be part of the city's lead team for the past 13 years reducing lead hazards in people's homes. The focus of our program is to keep children safe from lead hazards that may be in their home. Lead dust is invisible and causes the most harm in children's growing bodies. Our program works to keep children safe from hazards that may be in their home by replacing windows, stabilizing paint and other needed treatments. I invite members of the community to reach out to the Burlington lead program with any questions or concerns about home hazards and our program is currently accepting applications. Simple measures to keep children safe include washing their hands before naps and before eating, removing shoes before entering your home, regular cleaning of floors, windowsills and wells with disposable materials and testing your children for their blood lead level. Children should have their blood lead level tested level test completed at ages one and two. If you live in a pre-1970 home or your child's frequency an older home you will want to have their levels checked up until the age of six. These tests can be can be completed at well baby visits. When enrolled in the Burlington lead program you may also benefit from other healthy home improvements which may include replacing dangerous flooring, installing bath and kitchen fans, replacing inoperable windows and the removal of pests. Thank you again for coming and I'd like to introduce Caitlin O'Shea the owner of the home to say a few words. Thank you. On behalf of my husband Scott and I we just want to express our gratitude to the CEDO lead program in the city and working with Rebecca and Margaret and everybody. They have been wonderful and we are so grateful to have a lead free house for our two little girls. We moved in to this lead Britain house and without the program we would not have been able to do all of the work and the house would not have been safe for our growing family. And we're grateful that as I guess an indirect result the program is able to preserve the quality of the neighborhoods and allow families to move into these houses and keep the the community vibrant. So and I have a before photo if you're interested in seeing what it looks like I'm happy to share it but thank you so much and we are so happy to be here. Caitlin thank you and Scott thank you for for again for sharing all that and it's a great before and after shot if you do get a chance to look at the photo. Let me echo the welcome to Sean for stepping into this critical role. He fills big shoes. Michael McNamara worked in this community for many years in this HUD role and was a huge partner to the city and local housing partners and we're really excited that Sean has been named to this post and is setting up shop and getting started here. So with that we'd be happy to take taking any questions if members of the media have any how many questions about the program. Go ahead great. Margaret do you want to do you want to take that? So to apply for the program you can go to the city website and under CEDO lead program there's an application. We can also email one to you so the homeowner has to fill out an application as well as the occupants if they are different so it could require two applications and then we will ask for some information to verify income and the home has to be built before 1978. So income in pre-1978 are the big ones for applying for the program. Okay yep so to enroll in the program the income has to your income has to be at 80% or below of the median income but we do offer site visits which right now are virtual but we have been completing them and they're still helpful and so that's available to everyone. Any resident of Burlington or Winnieski and we can come and do an evaluation and take a look around and see if there's anything that really jumps out at us as being a hazard that you should be concerned about. Yes, yes sure so we also have a pot of funding through HUD's healthy homes so to use the healthy homes you have to be enrolled and having lead hazard reduction work done in your home but we're also able to look at the home as just a home in general and what other healthy homes issues there could be. Yes so we could look at some bars like bars for the bathroom because that could be considered a tripping hazard we have to line it up with one of our healthy homes principles but yes we could look at that. We haven't done any ramps but there have been other programs at CEDO that have so either we could potentially piggyback off of them or maybe even take it on ourselves. We've done a lot of bathroom and kitchen fans. We've provided air filters which are very popular nowadays. Flooring I know I said dangerous flooring but really like carpeting that has trips and or tears that could result in a trip and fall so we just look at the home on all the issues that we may see inoperable windows broken window panes even just peeling or chipping paint although it may not be lead based paint it still could cause an issue especially for a home with young children since they like to pick at everything. Yeah thank you. I just want to add to Margaret's point really the the Burlington lead program is a great asset for all Burlingtonians regardless of income level anyone who's living in an old home that is concerned that they're not sure if their home is safe for children and really encourage people to reach out to Margaret in the Burlington lead program. My wife and I had an evaluation of our home years ago and ended up with a number of recommendations that as we were raising kids were really appreciative for and enact upon and we made some improvements to windows and it was it was a great experience. I recommend it to anyone. If there are no more questions I think we'll we'll say thank you again to Scott and Caitlin and thank you again to our friends from HUD and and then we're off to the next HUD event in a moment too so thanks everybody.