Mission

CLEARCorps Detroit is a city wide program dedicated to protecting Detroit’s children from lead poisoning.  The goal of CLEARCorps/Detroit is to empower community residents to keep their children and their community lead-safe. CLEARCorps Detroit places a heavy emphasis on creating partnerships with the families served to assure that lead prevention skills are learned and a commitment is in place to continue to keep the family safe. CLEARCorps Detroit conducts community awareness and outreach as well as lead hazard control activities. 

History

CLEARCorps Detroit was established in 1999 in one targeted neighborhood and in January 2000 expanded citywide. Currently, CLEARCorps Detroit has three staff and five team members and works in the entire metro Detroit area.

Local partnerships

CLEARCorps/Detroit values the partnerships it has created with various stakeholders from the city, county and state. Partners can be found on the resource page.

Local funding and in-kind contributions

BASF Corporation-Coatings and Colorants Division serves as a major corporate partner for CLEARCorps/Detroit donating funding, in kind support, and volunteers. Other funding comes from the Kresge Foundation, Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion, Michigan Dept. of Community Health, Corporation for National Service, Neighborhood Opportunity Fund, and Environmental Protection Agency.

Family Action Plans

When a child is identified as at risk of lead poisoning or is lead poisoned, there are a number of steps that families can take to deduce the risk of further lead exposure.  CLEARCorps/Detroit staff and Americorps members work directly with each family to create a personalized "Family Action Plan."  The Family Action Plan includes identification of lead hazards in the home, education about lead poisoning and ways to reduce lead exposure, and referral into our housing services.  Housing services that we provide include help with relocation into a lead safe home or abatement of lead hazards in the current home through funding assistance and construction management. 

Programs

CLEARCorps/Detroit focuses its outreach efforts on the primary prevention of lead poisoning. Current projects include the following:

HELP Eliminate Leaded Properties: In collaboration with Wayne State University, homes in the City of Detroit that have lead poisoned multiple children have been identified and are being targeted for lead poisoning prevention through abatement, demolition, and/or enrollment of families into Family Action Plans.  Wayne State has created a shared database to track property information between the major city departments and nonprofits.  This project is being funded by the Kresge Foundation and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Less Lead Program: The focus of this program is on children who have been identified with blood lead levels between 5ug/dL and 9ug/dL.  Although, by definition, they are not lead poisoned, levels of this level are associated with learning disabilities and behavior problems.  In addition, these children are being exposed to lead somewhere, and through this program we can eliminate that exposure before the child is lead poisoned.  Sources of lead exposure are identified and Family Action Plans are developed for each child.

Lead Safe Babies: Prevention of lead exposure from birth is the goal of the Lead Safe Babies program.  Pregnant women and new mothers with infants less than 9 months old are enrolled into Family Action Plans.

Hardware Campaign: One of the most dangerous sources of lead exposure comes from repair, painting, and remodeling in homes built before 1978.  These activities can disturb lead paint and create hazardous levels of lead dust.  In order to inform people who are performing these activities about the potential for harm, CLEARCorps' Americorps team visits hardware stores to put up educational materials about ways to work in a lead safe manner.

MDCH Abatement Program: With funds from the Michigan Department of Community Health, CLEARCorps Detroit manages construction projects to abate leaded homes where children under the age of 6 reside.  In addition, CLEARCorps helps homeowners obtain additional funding through grants and loans if the cost of abatement exceeds MDCH funding. Risk assessments to identify lead hazards are performed by CLEARCorps and then contractors are given a chance to bid on the jobs.

Family Relocation Program: CLEARCorps/Detroit assists families who live in leaded homes find affordable lead safe homes through our relocation program. We work with a number of tax credit and low income housing programs throughout the city.

ELMO Presentations: CLEARCorps' team and Sesame Street's Elmo visit headstart classrooms throughout the city to teach young children about little things they can do in order to stay lead safe.  

Renovation, Repair, and Painting Courses: A couple times per year CLEARCorps hosts Renovation, Repair, and Painting Courses (previously Lead Safe Work Practice Trainings) in order to teach people how to work on homes built before 1978 in a lead safe manner.  Under EPA law, anyone working on a pre-1978 house for pay or a rental property must now take this course.

If you are interested in any of CLEARCorps services, please explore our website for more information about the relevant programs, and give as a call at (313) 924-4000 for more information or to schedule an appointment.