Get the Lead Out of Your Home

(Español)

Make Sure Your House is Lead Safe, Protect Children from Lead Hazards

Your home may have lead-based paint, which can cause serious health problems for your family. If lead-based paint begins to chip, crack, peel, or chalk, it soon becomes lead dust that gets on floors, windowsills and other surfaces. Your children might touch it with their fingers and put it in their mouths—the main way that lead gets into children’s bodies. The Lead Safe San Diego program can help you.

There is no safe level of lead in you or your child’s body. Even minute amounts of lead can poison and effect children’s development, especially preschoolers. Children also crawl and play on the floor, where lead dust can accumulate, and can ingest lead dust through normal hand-to-mouth behavior.

The Lead Safe San Diego program is administered by the San Diego Housing Commission funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, with generous matching contributions provided by the City of San Diego and private organizations.

Call:
Luz Palomino
Environmental Health Coalition
401 Mile of Cars Way, Suite 310
National City, CA 91950
(619) 474-0220

 

How Can I Get the Lead Out of My Home?

The Lead Safe San Diego Program is an effort to eliminate lead poisoning in homes where children under the age of six live. If you are eligible, you may qualify to have your home rehabilitated to eliminate lead-based paint health hazards—all at no cost to you.

How Do I Know If My Family Is In Danger?

If your home was built before 1978, your paint may have dangerous levels of lead in it. Older homes are even more likely to have lead-based paint and lead-based paint hazards. Most children with lead poisoning may have learning, growth, and behavior problems, although they may not look or act sick. The only way to know if your children have lead poisoning is to have them tested. All children under six years of age should get a blood lead test.

How Do I Qualify?

• You may be eligible if:
  • Your home was built before 1978
  • You have children under the age of six living in or frequently visiting your home
  • You earn a low income
  • You have rental property-occupied or owner-occupied by low-income residents
  • The painted surfaces of your home are deteriorated

How Can the Program Make My Home
Safe from Lead-Based Paint Hazards?

The Lead Safe San Diego program will test your home for lead hazards and make your home safe if lead-based paint hazards are found by:

• Performing a complete lead dust clean-up using a special vacuum cleaner, or
• Removing any parts of your home that have lead-based paint, such as windowsills, frames and doors and replacing them with new ones, or
• Placing a solid barrier over all lead-based paint surfaces, so that no one can reach them, or
• Removing damaged lead-based paint and repainting with a non-lead-based paint.