Affordable housing developments and the communities in which they’re located can have profound impacts on the health of their residents.
To help developers of affordable homes better understand and act upon the powerful connection between health and housing, Enterprise’s Green Communities Criteria—the first national standard for building environmentally conscious affordable housing—now includes the Health Action Plan framework. This framework provides a structured process that formalizes collaboration between community development organizations and public health professionals, bringing together public health data and community voices to inform building design decisions that can lead to improved resident health.
In the newest issue of Cityscape, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s policy and research journal, my colleagues and I discuss the results of a six-month pilot of the Health Action Plan process, including the following five participants and their developments:
• Grant Housing & Economic Development Corp., Los Angeles
76 multifamily apartments; 13,000 square feet of commercial retail; supportive services for formerly incarcerated residents
• Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, Hammond, La.
40 single-family detached homes
• LUCHA, Chicago
45 apartments across 12 sites
• Mercy Housing Southeast, Atlanta
77 apartments for seniors paired with a 40,000-square-foot health-care facility
• SKA Marin, East Harlem, N.Y.
152 multifamily apartments
Each organization received a $10,000 grant from Enterprise so it could take five steps: committing to embedding health into site design and operation; partnering with public health professionals to analyze community health data; engaging community stakeholders to prioritize health needs; addressing those needs through building design; and developing a plan to monitor the development’s impact on resident health throughout the project life cycle (design, construction, and operations).
Ultimately, the pilot found that the Health Action Plan process is an effective way to address resident health needs in the development of affordable homes. In reflecting on their participation in the pilot, the developers attributed the greatest value of the Health Action Plan to learning about the health issues facing their communities and deepening their understanding of how they can impact these issues through the built environment. Particularly noteworthy is that all five developers indicated that they are likely to engage a public health professional in the future. Additional findings from the pilot evaluation include:
· Up-front costs: Developers spent $10,000 to $15,000 on implementation. Most of these costs were associated with staff time spent on the process and hiring a public health professional.
· Time: Across participants, between 90 and 164 staff hours were spent on completing the Health Action Plan.
· Stakeholder engagement: Community engagement was pivotal in confirming and prioritizing health needs, demonstrating the importance of empowering residents to become part of the process.
These positive results tell us that fostering this kind of collaboration between the health care and housing fields through Health Action Plans can pay huge dividends, guiding developers in improving the health of residents. They also inform our ongoing work to refine and improve the Health Action Plan process, with the goal that it becomes routine for new affordable housing developments in the coming years. The health of our communities depends on it.
Enterprise created the Health Action Plan framework in collaboration with the U.S. Green Building Council and the Health Impact Project, a partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
