Children's Mercy Environmental Health Program among awardees of collaborative $1.8M grant

A collaboration led by the St. Louis County Department of Public Health has been awarded a $1.8 million federal grant to implement the Show-Me Missouri Healthy Homes Program in St. Louis County and Kansas City.

The program’s primary goal is to improve the health and safety of families through home assessments and remediation in targeted communities in both regions. DPH and its partners will focus on HUD’s eight Healthy Home Principles: keeping homes clean, dry, pest-free, contaminant-free, safe, ventilated, comfortable and maintained.

Radon testing will also be offered for each home. A tiered assessment model will be used with multiple home visits, ensuring that each enrolled family gets the healthy homes interventions best suited to its needs. DPH is the lead agency administering the Healthy Homes Production grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. DPH is collaborating with Children’s Mercy Kansas City’s Environmental Health Program, and each entity will work with local partners. In the St. Louis region, the local partners are the Community Action Agency of St. Louis County and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s EarthWays Center.

In the Kansas City area, the local partners are Westside Housing Organization, Metropolitan Energy Center and Rebuilding Together KC. Additional support has been made available in Kansas City through the Spire Foundation. The partnership will implement the Show-Me Missouri Healthy Homes Program in Kansas City and Saint Louis County.

The St Louis Promise Zone will be the highest priority area in the St. Louis County effort. Approximately $1 million will be spent in Kansas City and about $800,000 will be spent in St. Louis County. The program also seeks to increase the number of professionals in the St Louis County and Kansas City areas with knowledge of healthy home issues through several healthy homes training courses and workshops intended for audiences including contractors, health educators and housing and environmental professionals.

Other efforts will be made to improve the knowledge of healthy home issues to residents of the St. Louis County and Kansas City communities through structured education and outreach programs.

To become eligible for the program, families must meet federal income level criteria. For more information in St. Louis County, visit DPH’s Healthy Homes Program here or call 314-615-5323.

In the Kansas City area, please visit the Children's Mercy Kansas City web site or call the Children’s Mercy Healthy Homes Program at 816-302-8565.