By Chris Frost EAGLE TIMES NEWS EDITOR
NEWPORT — Sullivan County is making progress eliminating lead paint from homes.
Sullivan County Lead Paint Program Lead Kate Kirkwood told Sullivan County Commissioners that 53 units are fully cleared, and two are cleared but awaiting final reports.
“Knight Street [in Claremont] is done, finally, and we’re still waiting on the final clearance reports,” Kirkwood said during the Commission’s Housing and Urban Development report Monday.
There are units still in progress on Broad Street, Kirkwood said.
“We’ve asked the contractor to do the exterior first,” she said. “To avoid hitting bad weather a few months down the road, I’d like to get the exterior done now, have it cleared, and be done. As those units are cleared, we’ll report them. They should be cleared in a couple of months.”
Kirkwood said there are seven units on the waiting list and five they’ll be able to do.
“The properties on Main Street, Bank Avenue and Winter Street are on the waiting list,” she said.
And, a property on Winter Street “will qualify not only for our funding but the New Hampshire Housing funding,” she said.
She added that New Hampshire Housing stopped taking applications because they’re out of money.
“They’re on the same cycle as we are, but they’ve blown through their money,” she said. “They will not have funds for the foreseeable future, for at least another year. That means they can’t use their loan money either; people have to go through the grant program to access the loan money.”
She can access the money for people in Sullivan County, but everybody else is waiting for the next grant cycle.
“We should be able to get Winter Street some funding, up to $100,000, because they live there, and Bank and Main streets will qualify for their usual $11,000 loan program,” she said. “The loan money is available to any of the grantees. We can ask for anything we normally ask for; $11,000 per unit and single-family homes up to $100,000 if they’re owner-occupied. We can continue to ask for that for this grant or the next grant.”
She said HUD has not announced the next round of funding, and people are asking since they didn’t qualify like Sullivan County.
“HUD is not saying, because, I think they did not spend all their money in our cycle,” she said. “I don’t know when they are going to submit again.”
Kirkwood said Sullivan County is doing great.
“They’re not asking for closeout yet,” she said. “We do have about $200,000 we can use for a couple of these properties on the waiting list, but we have to move it around, and I have to meet with the HUD grant representative to get it moved into the right category so we can spend it.”
She said it is money contractors didn’t spend because they didn’t go to conferences.
“We’re not supposed to close out until June 2024, but we’re trying to close out faster and move into the next grant so we can get funded,” she said.
Board Chairman Bennie C. Nelson asked if they used all the lead money to be used for abatement.
The county was awarded a $1.3 million grant for lead abatement and $400,000 for Healthy Homes.
“I went to a conference a few months back when they (HUD) were pushing grantees to get that money out in the street,” Kirkwood said. “We are one of the few grantees that spent all our money.”
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