Boston Clean Air Grants: $1M Goes to Six Community Projects

The City of Boston will distribute $1,028,871 over the next two years to six community groups under its 2026 Community Clean Air Grant Program, Mayor Michelle Wu and the city’s Environment Department announced on Oct. 15, 2026. The Boston clean air grants fund projects that measure or reduce air pollution, with what the city described as a focus on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

The award at a glance

• Total: $1,028,871 across six projects, according to the city’s announcement.
• Timeline: Funds will be paid out over two years. Applications opened April 1, 2026, and closed June 30, 2026, per the program page. The next round opens in spring 2027.
• Funding source: The Air Pollution Control Commission’s Pollution Abatement Fund.
• Competition: The city said it received 20 proposals, reviewed by a 15-member committee from nine city departments.
• Cumulative: The city said the program has awarded $2,284,748 since 2021. The announcement counts 13 organizations; the program page counts 15 projects.

The six projects

The city listed the following awards:

• Chinatown Community Land Trust, $150,000: continuous indoor air monitoring in ten historic Chinatown row homes being converted from gas heat to electric air-source heat pumps, with bilingual workshops. The program page lists Chinatown Power and Tufts University researchers as partners.
• Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, $200,000: using data from the 75-sensor Common SENSES heat, noise and air network to work with auto-repair shops and other businesses in Roxbury and Dorchester, and to inform a resident-led Urban Village Plan.
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, $94,406: a “Clean Air Schoolyards” project with Boston Public Schools at the Mildred Avenue K-8 in Mattapan and the Mario Umana Academy K-8 in East Boston, studying heat and air quality in outdoor student spaces.
• Mothers Out Front East Boston, $198,352: monitoring fine and ultrafine particles in 20 East Boston daycares and comparing do-it-yourself Corsi-Rosenthal box purifiers with commercial HEPA units.
• Museum of Science, $199,974: a “Clearing the Air @ MOS” sensor lab and public campaign at the museum’s new Public Science Common.
• North American Indian Center of Boston, $184,536: paired indoor and outdoor monitors and HEPA purifiers in ten American Indian and Alaska Native households, plus a long-term mitigation plan.

What officials and grantees said

“Whether at daycare, at school, at home or in a park, air quality is fundamental to quality of life for all our residents,” Wu said in the announcement. Brian Swett, the city’s chief climate officer, said the projects “demonstrate how local investments can measure pollution, lower health risks, and collect essential data.”

Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust, said Chinatown “is Boston’s hottest neighborhood and has some of the worst particulate air pollution in the state.” Sonja Tengblad, founder of Mothers Out Front East Boston, said children in the neighborhood “face high pollution risks and are up to four times more likely to have asthma.” Jean-Luc Pierite, president of the North American Indian Center of Boston, cited smoke from recent Canadian wildfires as a reason for the work.

How the program works

According to the program page, the grant is run by the Air Pollution Control Commission and is open to nonprofits, which must serve as lead applicant and fiscal sponsor. Awards are capped at $200,000. The city says it does not fund building decarbonization, tree planting or e-bike projects through this grant because other funding exists for them, and it ties funded work to Boston’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. Applicants may receive at most one award per fiscal year.

Several of this year’s recipients build on earlier rounds. The program page shows Mothers Out Front East Boston received $51,764 in 2021 to install HEPA filters and sensors in 27 East Boston home daycares, and 2025 awards went to groups in Allston-Brighton, Chinatown, East Boston and the Fairmount Corridor.

The grants are one of several environmental and resilience items moving through City Hall this fall. The City Council recently voted to back the Army Corps coastal flood protection plan for Boston Harbor and the Question 6 conservation fund, and a hearing on a proposed Boston data center ban is scheduled for Oct. 19.

Featured photo: Storefronts along Harrison Avenue in Chinatown, Boston (January 2026), by 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources

• Boston.gov: City Announces Six Selectees of 2026 Community Clean Air Grant Program (Oct. 15, 2026)
• Boston.gov: Community Clean Air Grant Program
• EIN Presswire: republication of the city’s announcement
• Boston.gov: Community Clean Air Grant 2026 FAQ (PDF)