Paul Haan grew up in upstate New York and moved to Grand Rapids in the early 1980's to attend Calvin College. After graduating, Haan ended up staying in the city and today he's one of west Michigan's most vocal children's advocates. The activists talks about greening old homes, the economics of healthy kids, and his selfish side.
After several years of directing Get the Lead Out, a nonprofit group focused on eradicating children's lead poisoning in GR, you recently helped launch the Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan. What is the new group's primary mission?
There's a lot of energy in this town for green building, green houses, and green living. But a great deal of that energy is focused on new construction. We aim to introduce and promote the kinds of things regular people can do to make their existing homes – which might be one hundred years old – greener and healthier for their children and families.
What specific issues does the new coalition intend to address?
Radon is a big one. Depending on where you're at in Kent County, as many as one-in-five homes have radon in them. It's a simple fix. But people often times aren’t even aware it can be an issue. Carbon monoxide is another one. We shouldn’t use the health of our children and families to detect these problems. These types of problems are 100 percent preventable. People just need the knowledge, and often times some modest amount of money, to do something about it.
In his 2005 State of the City address, GR Mayor George Heartwell recognized Get the Lead Out (GTLO), for its outstanding contribution to the community. What will become of that group?
It will continue moving forward as a member of the coalition.
Can you measure GTLO's effect on the city?
We started our first houses in January 2004 and we've done $3.6 million in lead remediation in the City of Grand Rapids to date. That's a little more than 350 homes. In total, we've secured about $9 million in funding to get lead out of homes across the city.
What about the kids?
When we initially started organizing GTLO in late 2000, lead poisoning rates were running 500 to 600 kids per year. Back then, we tested 8,000 to 9,000 kids. Last year we tested about 11,000 kids and discovered 258 kids poisoned with lead. That's a fairly dramatic reduction in a very short time.
Why do you think the program has been so successful?
Economics. Nobody gets in for free. But we've taken an approach that aims to give property owners an incentive to remodel old homes and eliminate the lead problem with the lowest possible cost to the public. Our goal for rental properties, for instance, was to leverage the landlord's investment.
I mentioned we've done $3.6 million in repairs. That's not counting the landlord match. Often times we'll put $8,000 into a house and the property owner will put in another $5,000 to $6,000. So in reality, we've probably actually leveraged more like $5 million into the neighborhoods.
You sound more like a real estate investor than a social activist.
This is business. That $5 million goes to laborers, contractors, and suppliers right here in our community, and that's even more important in these tough economic times. There's real business to be had dealing with lead, radon, carbon dioxide, and other children's health issues. This makes good economic sense.
Isn't there also the avoided, long-term cost to the community of treating children with health problems?
The biggest thing you run into with an issue like lead and kids is not so much the cost of treatment, but rather the effect on their long-term livelihood. Lead is a neurotoxin and there's a social and economic cost related to a child's declining educational performance and their ability to earn a good wage.
What do you think of the new Helen DeVos Children's Hospital on Health Hill?
I think it's tremendous. But what would it take to build a hospital that has one of the city's longest bike racks in front of it? You know, to visibly promote children's health. There could be a little rack at one end to park tricycles. This place is for kids.
So you'd like to see more public spaces incorporated into the place?
We traditionally think of hospitals as the place where you go for emergency care and triage. I'd like to see it go the other way. So it becomes not so much what happens inside the building but rather the messages, practices, and support that come out of it into our communities. When I think of all the fabulous hype around the new hospital, I often think we need an equal amount of fabulous hype around how we reach out and connect with families.
Can you be more specific?
Children's environmental health is not so much about prescriptions in the traditional sense. It's about awareness and action. The prescription is to fix your house and get the lead out, or buy a carbon monoxide detector, or get out and ride a bike. One saying we like to use is 'the solution to the health problem is not all in health care, it's elsewhere.'
What motivates Paul Haan?
Part shameless idealism, part selfishness. I believe that if we can conceive a compelling vision for what we want our community to look like we can make it happen. The selfish part is, if you have that idealism and grander vision, why wouldn’t you want it in your front yard.