SPRINGFIELD — A $1 million federal grant funding efforts to decrease asthma in Western Massachusetts has been terminated, Governor Maura Healey’s office announced on Friday.
The grant from the Environmental Protection Agency went to the state Department of Public Health, which was working with Springfield-based Revitalize Community Development Corporation. About $900,000 was left to be spent, Healey’s office said, and it was intended to go towards improving ventilation and removing mold in homes in Chicopee, Holyoke and Springfield.
“It’s devastating,” said Colleen Shanley-Loveless, president and CEO of Revitalize Community Development Corporation, which got some of that grant funding to support a program that remediates people’s homes to address asthma risks and triggers.
Springfield ranked fourth in the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s Asthma Capitals 2024 list, which takes into account asthma prevalence and emergency room visits and fatalities. The city was ranked number one on the list in 2019.
“The need is overwhelming,” Shanley-Loveless said. “It’s very frustrating and it’s very devastating for the people we’re trying to work with.”
A spokesperson for Healey’s office said the EPA told the state that the grant was being terminated “on the grounds that the award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities. The objectives of the award are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.”
When asked for comment, an EPA spokesperson said in a statement: “Maybe the Biden-Harris Administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and preferencing on the EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment. Partisan actors can spin this grant cancellation in any which way they choose, this is an ‘environmental and climate justice’ grant, not about asthma.”
Revitalize Community Development Corporation was subcontracted by the state to work on a three-year program that had already started and expanded the in-home remediation work it does, Shanley-Loveless said.
Under the grant, the group sent specialists into homes to assess how they can be remediated to be healthier. They coordinate with contractors on tasks like mold remediation, vent cleaning, and replacing carpets, which can accumulate dust and trigger asthma, Shanley-Loveless said.
“With this funding, we were able to help those that might fall through the cracks that would be in need of these services,” she said.
Shanley-Loveless hopes the federal government will reconsider the decision so her group can “get back to doing the work we do best.”
The decision is “misguided,” said Dr. Robbie Goldstein, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
“We have used these grants to address the root causes of asthma in communities that have been historically underserved — places where too many children struggle to breathe because of preventable environmental conditions.
Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia, Chicopee Mayor John Vieau, and Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno all expressed their frustration the grant cancellation in statements Friday.
“I know firsthand, for my youngest daughter Chiara has had to deal with a serious case of asthma,” Sarno said in a statement. Sarno made an appeal to President Donald Trump. “Mr. President, many people who voted for and supported you and/or their family members and friends are afflicted with asthma and now you turn your back on them?! In the name of public health, I ask President Trump to review and reverse this edict.”
The state Department of Public Health submitted a “formal dispute” over the EPA’s cancellation, according to the governor’s office.
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