Senator Jack Reed recently paid tribute to the National Center for Healthy Housing and its founding director Nick Farr. His statement, which is provided below, appeared in the congressional Record on January 23, 2003.

RECOGNIZING THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTHY HOUSINGīS 10TH ANNIVERSARY

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the National Center for Healthy Housing as it celebrates its 10th year of protecting children from residential environmental hazards while preserving the supply of affordable housing.

The National Center for Healthy Housing was founded in 1992 as the National Center for Lead-Safe Housing to address the No. 1 environmental health problem facing our Nationīs children, childhood lead poisoning, and the threat that lead paint posed to the preservation of our Nationīs affordable housing stock. Since its inception, the center has become our countryīs preeminent source of technical and practical information on reducing the threat of lead paint hazards in housing. The center was responsible for publishing the first comprehensive technical guidelines for evaluating and controlling lead paint hazards in housing, which are still being used today. The center conducted a scientific evaluation of 14 projects funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, (HUD), Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control Grant program. The evaluation yielded important information about the effectiveness of lead hazard control treatments and the results continue to inform national lead poisoning prevention policy. The center also published a groundbreaking scientific study on the relationship between settled lead dust levels and blood lead levels in children. It was this study that highlighted the insidious nature of the hazardous dust generated from lead-based paint.

Despite its many research accomplishments, the center is perhaps best known for its unique ability to translate scientific research and Government regulations into results. When HUD published its final lead-safe housing regulation 2 years ago, communities expressed concern about the lack of trained personnel to carry out the ruleīs requirements. In response, the center administered training to over 14,000 individuals across the country, enabling them to perform the lead-related services required by the rule. When local housing programs expressed a need to better understand the ruleīs requirements and how to incorporate them into the Community Development Block Grant and HOME programs, the center provided training to over 2,000 housing program staff in over 40 communities.

Today, as the National Center for Healthy Housing, the center continues its commitment to childhood lead poisoning prevention and is expanding its expertise to other environmental hazards in the home such as mold, allergens, and other irritants.

As we celebrate the centerīs 10th anniversary, I would also like to pay tribute to its founding director, Nick Farr. Mr. Farr retired last October after a long and distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. Much of his professional experience was in the areas of housing finance, housing and urban development, and housing-based lead poisoning prevention. A graduate of Yale Law School, Mr. Farr spent the 1950s and early 1960s in private practice. In 1962, Mr. Farr joined the Agency for International Development at the U.S. Department of State as Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Near East and South Asia economic assistance programs. Five years later, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Director of the Model Cities Administration at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the 1970s, Mr. Farr was a New York University law professor before joining the U.S. Department of Commerce as General Counsel to the Economic Development Administration in 1977. In 1979, Mr. Farr was appointed General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Then in the 1980s, Mr. Farr was Executive Director of the California Housing Finance Agency, Executive Vice President of the Wells Fargo Mortgage Company in California, and Vice President for Field Services at The Enterprise Foundation. During his tenure with The Enterprise Foundation, Mr. Farr served on the board of directors of a nonprofit housing developer based in Baltimore that focused on creating affordable, lead-safe housing units. As a result of his service on this board and his accumulated professional experience, in 1992, Mr. Farr conceived of, and created, the National Center for Lead-Safe Housing. As the founding director of the center, Mr. Farr helped spearhead a variety of public and private initiatives to protect our Nationīs children from residential lead hazard exposures.

I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Nick Farrīs legacy and the profound impact that the National Center for Healthy Housing has had and continues to have on the creation and maintenance of safer and healthier affordable housing for low-income families across our Nation.

Inc.