HUD has two lead grant programs closing on the same day this year, about $337 million between them. Which one you can apply to depends on what kind of organization you are.
Two NOFOs, one deadline
Both come out of HUD's Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. Both close August 31 2026 at 11:59:59pm eastern. Both expect to announce awards September 21.
Healthy Homes Production, opportunity LHC-2600-DC-0044. About $97.85 million, of which $92.85 million is the main program and $5 million is a separate weatherization pool. Awards run $1.5 million to $4 million, around 25 of them, 42 months to spend it.
Lead Hazard Reduction, opportunity LHC-2600-DC-0013. $239.1 million split three ways. $115.8 million goes to the jurisdictions with the highest abatement need, which is a closed list in the NOFO's own appendix. $53.4 million goes to everybody else, including jurisdictions that have never held one of these grants. $70 million is its own healthy homes supplemental, which is separate money from the weatherization pool above. About 30 awards, 48 months.
Award size on the lead grant depends on your history. A first-time applicant can ask up to $4 million plus $400,000 supplemental. A prior grantee with 3,500 or more pre-1940 rental units can ask up to $7 million plus $850,000. The floor in every category is $1 million combined.
Who can apply
Healthy Homes Production will take a direct application from a 501(c)(3), and from cities, counties, townships, states, and tribes. Colleges and universities are excluded even with a 501(c)(3). So are for-profits, sole proprietors, and individuals. Anyone holding a 2024 award from this same program is excluded too. Consortium applications are allowed if one eligible entity leads adn every member clears HUD's civil rights threshold separately.
Lead Hazard Reduction runs the other way. Only units of local government, and for states or tribes, only ones already operating an EPA-authorized lead abatement certification program. There is no nonprofit category anywhere on its eligible list. A nonprofit can do the work as a subrecipient or contractor, it just cannot sign the application.
A nonprofit that wants to lead applies to Healthy Homes Production. For the lead grant, you need a government entity willing to be the applicant of record.
What the score is asking for
100 points, plus up to 2 more if at least half the award lands inside a qualified opportunity zone. 70 is the floor to be considered.
| Rating factor | Points | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant and partner capacity | 43 | Who is running this, and have they done anything like it |
| Need and extent of the problem | 30 | Is this documented where you work, with cited data |
| Program financial management | 25 | Can you handle the money, and did you bring more than the minimum |
| Section 3 plan | 2 | Local hiring and contracting |
| Opportunity zone preference | 2 | Sits outside the 100 |
Capacity is the largest factor at 43 points: key personnel 15, program administration and oversight 13 (3 of those cover who handles environmental review), partner capacity 4, contractor and subrecipient capacity 1, and your organization's experience over the last three years 10.
Need is 30, and 10 of those points are data tables that each need a cited public source. 6 points of demographics: target-area population, under-6, under-18, 62-and-older, childhood asthma rate, and area median income splits. 4 points of housing data: the rental versus owner-occupied split, and the share of housing with moderate or severe physical problems.
Financial management is 25: budget documentation 8, budget narrative 8, financial accountability 6, and a 3-point leverage bonus.
The table HUD published blank
Page 43 of the Healthy Homes Production PDF holds that leverage bonus table. The points column prints fine, 0 through 3. The percentage thresholds next to them are blank, and so is the header above them. Pull the raw text out of the file and you get orphaned fragments, "14 percent," "15 percent," and a clipped "...rcent" with the leading digits missing.
So the published document does not tell you what leverage percentage earns those points. I emailed HUD's Healthy Homes Production NOFO team (OLHCHH.NOFA@hud.gov) on July 29 2026 and asked. They answered the same afternoon:
| Leverage as a percentage of the federal request | Points |
|---|---|
| 10 percent, the required minimum | 0 |
| Over 10 up to 14 percent | 1 |
| Over 14 up to 15 percent | 2 |
| Over 15 percent | 3 |
That comes from their written reply, not from the PDF. The 10 percent is not a bonus tier, it's the floor you clear before any of these points start counting. HUD may post an amendment or an FAQ fixing the page, so check Grants.gov before committing a number to a budget.
Three points is worth the trouble of getting right. It's larger than the contractor capacity sub-factor and the Section 3 factor combined, and on a $1.5 million request the difference between the floor and the top tier is $150,000 versus more than $225,000 in commitments you have to line up before you submit.
Two things I can't answer yet
Whether HUD issues a formal correction to page 43 before the deadline.
And whether special district governments, health districts and similar, can apply to Healthy Homes Production at all. Its eligible-applicant list has no entity code for that category, while the lead grant's list does.
I make lead test kits. Help with these applications is free and there is nothing attached to it. A donated kit is valued at fair market value like any other in-kind item, and remediation work goes out through the applicant's own competitive procurement, not to me.
Next: the leverage math, where that money is allowed to come from, and the two budget ratios that sink applications.
The rest of this series
- Part 1. The 2026 HUD lead grants: who can apply, and how they get scored (you are here)
- Part 2. HUD lead grants: leverage, the 10 percent, and the budget mathAugust 3, 2026
- Part 3. HUD lead grants: the gates that stop small applicantsAugust 5, 2026