Guide
Free and Low-Cost Lead Remediation Help for Landlords in Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Delaware Counties
Failed your first lead inspection? Public HUD-funded programs in Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Delaware counties can pay to fix the hazard - here's the program, the contact, and the eligibility for each.
Published August 16, 2026 · Pennsylvania
A lead-safe inspection does not always pass on the first visit. If the dust-wipe sampling or the visual assessment turns up deteriorated paint, bare contaminated soil, or lead dust above the clearance threshold, the property has to be made safe before it can be certified – and that repair is a real cost most landlords never budgeted for. Before you pay for that work out of pocket, it is worth checking whether a public program will cover it first.
Across Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Delaware counties, federally funded lead-hazard programs pay for exactly this kind of remediation – testing plus the repairs a failed inspection points to, such as window and door replacement – at no cost to the owner for a qualifying property. This guide names the program, the contact, and the eligibility for each of the three counties, and is honest about the one county where the public record is thinner than the other two.
Three programs, one federal source
These are not three unrelated county perks. They are three of roughly 25 free HUD-funded lead-remediation programs operating across Pennsylvania, compiled by the PA Lead-Free Promise Project in its “6 Steps for Municipalities” toolkit, which lists a named contact for each program and points to PA Department of Health's statewide grantee coordinator, Giselle Hallden (ghallden@pa.gov), for counties beyond this list.
Source: PA Lead-Free Promise Project, “6 Steps for Municipalities” toolkit (statewide HUD lead-remediation program directory) (2022)
Because these are HUD Lead Hazard Control grants, they share a common shape, and it is worth knowing that shape before you call: they generally serve a household with a child under six or a pregnant occupant, in a home built before 1978, under an income limit. That means the qualifying party is usually your tenant's household, not you – so whether a unit qualifies depends on who lives in it. Not every landlord's property will be a fit, which is exactly why it is worth confirming per county rather than assuming.
Montgomery County: the Lead Hazard Control Program
Montgomery County runs the best-documented of the three. Its Lead Hazard Control Program provides free testing and repairs – window and door replacement among them – for households with a child under six or a pregnant occupant, in a pre-1978 home, under an income cap that runs from roughly $68,750 for a one-person household up to $129,600 for a household of eight. The county reported $1.8 million in new HUD funding for the program in October 2024.
The durable way to reach it is the county's own program line and inbox: 610-278-5117 and healthyhomes@montgomerycountypa.gov. Start there rather than with any single staffer's name, which tends to go stale faster than the department channel does.
Source: Montgomery County, Lead Hazard Control Program (2024)
Delaware County: the Lead Hazard Reduction Program
Delaware County – the county that covers Chester, East Lansdowne, and Yeadon, all of which now have their own lead ordinances – runs a parallel program, the Lead Hazard Reduction Program, for free remediation of qualifying homes. The county's published intake contacts are Nasia Hill at 610-891-5427 and John Forte (CAADC) at 610-833-4453, with program details on the county's Housing & Community Development page.
Source: Delaware County, Lead Hazard Reduction Program (2023)
As with Montgomery, treat the individual names as a starting point rather than a permanent directory: county program staff turn over, and the county program page is the reference that outlasts any one contact. Confirm you have a current name before you rely on one printed here.
Philadelphia: what we can point you to, and what we can't
Philadelphia has a lead-remediation grant program in the same statewide HUD roster, and the Lead-Free Promise Project's directory names a contact for it – Crystal Evans. What we could not locate in our source material is a published income-limit schedule, a direct intake line, or an eligibility page for the Philadelphia program at the level of detail the Montgomery and Delaware county pages provide. Rather than fill that gap with numbers we cannot verify, we name the contact and the directory and stop there.
Source: PA Lead-Free Promise Project, “6 Steps for Municipalities” toolkit (Philadelphia program contact) (2022)
For the legal backdrop on why a Philadelphia landlord needs the certificate in the first place – and what actually triggers it – see our full guide to Philadelphia's universal lead certification law.
What we can verify, and what we can't
Three honest caveats, so this reads as a starting map and not a guarantee:
- Philadelphia's specifics are thinner in the record. We can point you to the program and a named contact, but we could not confirm its income limits or intake process from the sources we cite, and we will not invent them. Call the directory contact or PA Department of Health's grantee coordinator to confirm current eligibility.
- Names age faster than programs. The county program pages and the statewide directory are the durable references; a specific person's name or direct line may have changed since publication.
- These are income-qualified programs. Eligibility generally centers on a young child or pregnant occupant, a pre-1978 home, and a household income under the cap – usually the tenant's household. A property with no qualifying occupant may not be covered.
What a program pays for, and what it doesn't
These grants pay to fix the hazard – the deteriorated paint, the failed window, the contaminated dust or soil that caused the inspection to fall short. What they do not do is issue your certificate. After the remediation work is finished, the unit still needs a post-repair clearance inspection, and a passing result is what produces the lead-safe certificate your rental license actually requires. The program covers the repair; the certification is a separate, final step.
If your property does not qualify for a public program, the repair and the re-inspection are on you – and there is no reason for the certification half of that to be a mystery. We publish our inspection pricing in full on our pricing page, by bedroom count, with no call for a quote.
Fixed the hazard? The certificate is the last step.
We handle the clearance inspection, the lab, and the filing – every price published up front.
See certification pricing