Welcome to Housing Is, a hub for generating effective programs and sharing innovative ideas.

Sign Up or Sign In
 

Housing Is Working Group 2023-2024 Calendar

Join the Housing Is Working Group to discuss special topics related to cross-sector initiatives and programmatic considerations particularly focused on the intersections of housing, health, and education.

This year’s public webinars cover topics such as the mobility asthma project, trauma-informed approaches to housing, resident-focused racial equity work, out-of-school time, and how FCC grantees are supprting voucher holders.

View Calendar
 

Elements of a Successful Partnership

With generous support from the MacArthur Foundation, CLPHA developed an in-depth report on regional housing-education collaborations taking place at housing authorities across the Pacific-Northwest.

Read the Multimedia Report
 
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Aug 3, 2023
A Community Health Worker Program Development & Toolkit for Affordable Housing and Community Development Organizations

Authored by: NeighborWorks America
Topics: Health, Healthy homes, Housing
Shared by Camille Anoll-Hunter on Aug 3, 2023
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Nov 3, 2022
In the newly released Stanford Social Innovation Review article, co-authors Jessica Mulcahy, Success Measures at NeighborWorks America; Vedette R. Gavin, Verge Impact Partners; and Stacey Barbas and Kate McLaughlin, The Kresge Foundation discuss their collaborative work on a three-year developmental evaluation to learn about the strategies and approaches grantees are using to advance health equity through housing. This article is part of the series “Collaboration for Housing Justice” sponsored by Funders for Housing and Opportunity to mark their fifth anniversary.

Authored by: Stacey Barbas, Kate McLaughlin, Jessica Mulcahy & Vedette R. Gavin, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Topics: Community development, Health, Housing, Place-based, Racial inequalities, Research
Shared by Camille Anoll-Hunter on Dec 15, 2022
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Sep 23, 2022
NCHPH has catalogued promising practices on health center and housing partnerships that were identified during T/TA activities. Some promising practices in this publication include collaboration strategies to address COVID-19, flu vaccination efforts, smoking cessation, access to health care, and more.

Authored by: National Center for Health in Public Housing (NCHPH)
Topics: Health
Shared by Gabe Castro on Sep 23, 2022
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Sep 23, 2022
Getting regular exercise can be a challenge, but there are many positive benefits, particularly for people with diabetes.

Authored by: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Topics: Exercise, Health, Healthy homes, Nutrition
Shared by Gabe Castro on Sep 23, 2022

How Health Centers Can Promote Benefits of Exercise to Diabetic Public Housing Residents and Promising Practices

Publication
Sep 23, 2022
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Getting regular exercise can be a challenge, but there are many positive benefits, particularly for people with diabetes.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Sep 23, 2022
The Effects of ‘Food Deserts’ on Public Housing Residents Living with Diabetes

Authored by: National Center for Health in Public Housing
Topics: Energy, Exercise, Health, Healthy homes, Mobility, Nutrition
Shared by Gabe Castro on Sep 23, 2022
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
May 1, 2022
This toolkit by NCHPH and NNCC provides information and resources for health center staff to partner and collaborate more effectively with their local housing authorities and with other providers serving residents of public housing and other low-income housing.

Authored by: National Center of Health In Public Housing
Topics: Health, Partnerships
Shared by Camille Anoll-Hunter on Sep 23, 2022

HEALTHY TOGETHER: A Toolkit for Health Center Collaborations with HUD Assisted Housing and Community-Based Organizations

Publication
May 1, 2022
National Center of Health In Public Housing
This toolkit by NCHPH and NNCC provides information and resources for health center staff to partner and collaborate more effectively with their local housing authorities and with other providers serving residents of public housing and other low-income housing.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Aug 26, 2021
The National CLAS Standards are intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities by establishing a blueprint for health and health care organizations

Authored by: Think Cultural Health, an initiative of the Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Topics: Communications, Health, Immigrants
Shared by Camille Anoll-Hunter on Aug 26, 2021

National Standards for Culturally and Linquistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care

Publication
Aug 26, 2021
Think Cultural Health, an initiative of the Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
The National CLAS Standards are intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities by establishing a blueprint for health and health care organizations
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Jan 14, 2021
A Playbook for Local Health Department Strategies in the United States

Authored by: The National Community-Based Workforce Alliance
Topics: COVID-19, Health
Shared by Camille Anoll-Hunter on Aug 26, 2021
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Oct 3, 2019
A majority of property managers report that a smoke-free policy is largely well followed and self enforced by residents and staff. However, it is not uncommon for a small minority of residents to struggle or refuse to comply by continuing to smoke or allowing their guests to smoke on the property. These resources and tools can assist management in promoting compliance and enforcing the policy when necessary. If you would like to consult on solutions specific to your situation, reach out to info@smokefreepublichousingproject.org.

Authored by: Clean Air for All
Topics: Health, Healthy homes, Smoke-free
Shared by Jackie Siewert on Oct 3, 2019

Smoke-Free Public Housing Compliance and Enforcement Toolkit

Publication
Oct 3, 2019
Clean Air for All
A majority of property managers report that a smoke-free policy is largely well followed and self enforced by residents and staff. However, it is not uncommon for a small minority of residents to struggle or refuse to comply by continuing to smoke or allowing their guests to smoke on the property.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
May 30, 2019
A more regional approach to care is needed – one that involves coordinated, person-centered healthcare with robust connections to social services and community resources. An innovative infrastructure to do just that is underway in four communities across New Jersey: Trenton, Camden, Newark, and Paterson. Efforts begun in 2011 under New Jersey’s Medicaid Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Demonstration Project have evolved into four regional collaboratives that integrate, coordinate, and align all the disconnected programs aimed at making communities healthier.

Authored by: Kathleen Noonan and Jon Tew for Camden Coaliton of Healthcare Providers
Topics: Data sharing, East Coast, Health, Partnerships
Shared by Housing Is on Jun 13, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Jun 12, 2019
Zoning rules dictate more than just how we can use and build on land. They also shape our communities and our lives. Land use laws determine where we can find housing, schools, and parks—and who has access to them.

Authored by: Maya Brennan, Emily Peiffer, and Kimberly Burrowes for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
Topics: Health, Housing, Legislation & Policy, Racial inequalities
Shared by Housing Is on Jun 13, 2019

How Zoning Shapes our Lives

Publication
Jun 12, 2019
Maya Brennan, Emily Peiffer, and Kimberly Burrowes for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
Zoning rules dictate more than just how we can use and build on land. They also shape our communities and our lives. Land use laws determine where we can find housing, schools, and parks—and who has access to them.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
This paper analyzes why SNAP benefits are inadequate, reviews the body of research showing positive effects from more adequate SNAP benefits, and offers key policy solutions to improve benefit adequacy.

Authored by: Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
Topics: Food insecurity, Health, Legislation & Policy, Low-income, Nutrition, Research
Shared by Housing Is on Jun 11, 2019

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Initiatives to Make SNAP Benefits More Adequate Significantly Improve Food Security, Nutrition, and Health

Publication
Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
This paper analyzes why SNAP benefits are inadequate, reviews the body of research showing positive effects from more adequate SNAP benefits, and offers key policy solutions to improve benefit adequacy.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
May 20, 2019
African-Americans are three times more likely to die from asthma as whites. In Philadelphia and elsewhere, how can outcomes improve with changes to housing quality and pollution control?

Authored by: Sophia Newman for Next City
Topics: Asthma, Health, Housing, Low-income, Racial inequalities
Shared by Housing Is on May 23, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
May 22, 2019
In May 2018, Kaiser Permanente, the largest private integrated care system in the US, announced that it would invest $200 million through its Thriving Communities Fund to address the affordable housing crisis in California’s Bay Area. Then in 2019, Kaiser announced that it used the fund to purchase an apartment building in a diverse but quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland with the express purpose of making repairs and upgrades to improve health in the building and to ensure affordability to current residents. If Kaiser wanted to improve health, why wouldn’t it focus solely on housing upgrades, which research shows can produce positive health outcomes (PDF)? Why would it include maintaining affordability in its mandate?

Authored by: Martha Fedorowicz for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
Topics: Health, Housing, Low-income
Shared by Housing Is on May 23, 2019

What's Bad for your Wallet Might Be Bad for your Health: The Negative Health Consequences of Spending Too Much on Housing

Publication
May 22, 2019
Martha Fedorowicz for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
In May 2018, Kaiser Permanente, the largest private integrated care system in the US, announced that it would invest $200 million through its Thriving Communities Fund to address the affordable housing crisis in California’s Bay Area.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 25, 2019
Research shows that clinical care is only one factor that impacts population health and that a collection of other factors – including the natural and built environment where people live, education economic stability, food, and community and social context – grouped under the term social determinants of health (SDOH), have significantly more influence on care utilization, outcomes, and population health. Together, these factors account for 60% of preventable mortality.

Authored by: Daniel Young for The Network for Public Health Law
Topics: Child welfare, Early childhood, Health, Low-income, Medicaid / Medicare
Shared by Housing Is on May 2, 2019

Addressing Social Determinants of Maternal and Child health through Medicaid Managed Care

Publication
Apr 25, 2019
Daniel Young for The Network for Public Health Law
Research shows that clinical care is only one factor that impacts population health and that a collection of other factors – including the natural and built environment where people live, education economic stability, food, and community and social context – grouped under the term social determinant
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
May 1, 2019
Focusing on traditional neighborhood measures such as disadvantage and segregation rarely reveals how specific policies, powerful decisionmakers, and institutions built on racial hierarchy generate and maintain racial health disparities. To help researchers, policymakers, and practitioners consider how best to recognize and incorporate structural racism in the study of place-based health disparities, this literature review highlights four lessons researchers can use to more directly study the connection between structural racism and health.

Authored by: How Housing Matters for The Urban Institute
Topics: Health, Racial inequalities, Research
Shared by Housing Is on May 2, 2019

Four Ways to Integrate a Structural Racism Lens into Neighborhood Health Research

Publication
May 1, 2019
How Housing Matters for The Urban Institute
Focusing on traditional neighborhood measures such as disadvantage and segregation rarely reveals how specific policies, powerful decisionmakers, and institutions built on racial hierarchy generate and maintain racial health disparities.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Moving Health Care Upstream (MHCU) is based on the belief that health systems can address persistent and costly health inequities by moving “upstream”—beyond the walls of hospitals and clinics and into the communities, collaborating with community-based organizations to address the root causes of disease. The various areas of work within MHCU share a common focus-supporting hospitals and community stakeholders in testing and spreading strategies to move upstream, and sharing “what works” to inform the field and accelerate the upstream movement in the field as a whole. Policy Learning Labs are one example of MHCU’s work to spread knowledge and accelerate action in the field.

Authored by: Nemours, Moving Health Care Upstream, and Change Lab Solutions
Topics: Child welfare, Early childhood, Food insecurity, Green, Health, Housing, Legislation & Policy, Nutrition, Partnerships, Youth
Shared by Housing Is on May 1, 2019

Policy Learning Lab Compendium of Research & Technical Assistance Memos

Publication
Nemours, Moving Health Care Upstream, and Change Lab Solutions
Moving Health Care Upstream (MHCU) is based on the belief that health systems can address persistent and costly health inequities by moving “upstream”—beyond the walls of hospitals and clinics and into the communities, collaborating with community-based organizations to address the root causes of di
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 24, 2019
Are you a Pennsylvanian without a high school diploma? Then sign up with AmeriHealth Caritas for Medicaid and the plan will help you get your GED. Having trouble getting a job in Ohio? If you are enrolled in CareSource, the Life Services JobConnect in CareSource’s managed care organization (MCO) will arrange job coaching and other employment services at no cost. These are not examples of corporate philanthropy. Rather, they reflect a growing recognition in the health care sector, especially among managed care organizations, that good health—and achieving lower medical costs—requires a focus on the nonmedical factors known as social determinants that affect health and well-being.

Authored by: Stuart Butler for news@Jama
Topics: Education, Food insecurity, Health, Housing, Low-income, Nutrition, Research
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 25, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 25, 2019
Adequate, safe, and affordable housing is one of our most basic needs. But in the US, access to housing is not guaranteed. Demand for affordable housing is growing, especially as housing costs increase beyond wage growth in many communities. Hospitals and health systems are stepping in to help fill this gap. Because of their mission orientation, the importance of stable housing on health outcomes, and policy changes initiated by the Affordable Care Act, hospitals and health systems are increasingly investing in and supporting the creation of affordable housing in their communities.

Authored by: Martha Fedorowicz and Kathryn Reynolds for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
Topics: Affordable Care Act, Community development, Health, Housing, Low-income
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 25, 2019

Three Ways Hospitals and Health Systems Can Improve How They Invest in Affordable Housing

Publication
Apr 25, 2019
Martha Fedorowicz and Kathryn Reynolds for How Housing Matters, The Urban Institute
Adequate, safe, and affordable housing is one of our most basic needs. But in the US, access to housing is not guaranteed. Demand for affordable housing is growing, especially as housing costs increase beyond wage growth in many communities.
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 24, 2019
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and states spend over $300 billion per year on the care of dually eligible individuals, yet still do not achieve acceptable health outcomes. In a 2016 study of social risk factors in the Medicare value-based purchasing programs, dual enrollment status was the most powerful predictor of poor outcomes. For example, relative to Medicare-only beneficiaries, dually eligible individuals had 10-31 percent higher risk-adjusted odds of hospital readmission across conditions measured in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, and scores were lower for dually eligible individuals on nearly all (17 of 19) beneficiary-level quality measures in Medicare Advantage.

Authored by: Seema Verma for Health Affairs
Topics: Dual-eligibles, Funding, Health, Low-income, Medicaid / Medicare, Research, Seniors
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 24, 2019
0
1
1
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 8, 2019
In 2015, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) prevented 8.4 million people from living in poverty. This essential and effective safety net program helps people with low incomes purchase food for themselves and their families—an estimated 40.8 million Americans were living in poverty in 2015; absent SNAP benefits, that number would have been 49.1 million. Despite its success, SNAP is facing rule changes that would cause people to lose benefits—harming those who need it most and weakening the poverty-fighting power of the program.

Authored by: Anthony Barrows for Ideas 42
Topics: Food insecurity, Health, Legislation & Policy, Low-income, Nutrition
Shared by Mica O'Brien on Apr 18, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
The role of public and nonprofit hospitals and hospital systems in supportive housing is not an obvious one at first glance. Traditionally, the role of nonprofit and public hospitals has been to provide primary healthcare and additional health services to the public, often to select “catchment” areas or neighborhoods. The extent of these institutions’ role in housing was limited to either providing a) short-term inpatient beds for medical or treatment services, or b) residences for nurses or other hospital staff. Why then are more and more nonprofit and public hospitals becoming involved in not only creating, but also providing and managing supportive housing?

Authored by: Richard Cho for CSH
Topics: Health, Homelessness, Housing, Partnerships, Research, Supportive housing
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 17, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, an opportunity to recognize the importance and raise awareness of our roles —families, communities, service providers, researchers, policy makers and others— in working together to prevent child abuse and neglect and to promote the overall social, physical, and emotional well-being of children and their families.

Authored by: Jasmine Hayes for CSH
Topics: Child welfare, Family engagement, Health, Homelessness, Housing, Safety
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 17, 2019

National Child Abuse Prevention Month: Strong and Thriving Families

Publication
Jasmine Hayes for CSH
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, an opportunity to recognize the importance and raise awareness of our roles —families, communities, service providers, researchers, policy makers and others— in working together to prevent child abuse and neglect and to promote the overall social, phys
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 12, 2019
In Richmond, Virginia, an interprofessional group of health care students and faculty members is helping seniors solve problems early.

Authored by: T.R. Goldman for Health Affairs
Topics: Dental, Health, Low-income, Mental health, Partnerships, Seniors
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 12, 2019
0
0
0
0
Publication
Community:
Apr 11, 2019
High-need, high-cost (HNHC) individuals are defined as people of all ages living with clinically complex needs and functional limitations who also incur high health care costs or are likely to do so in the near future. Despite frequent contact with the health care system and substantial medical spending, the physical, social, and behavioral health needs of these individuals often remain unmet due to uncoordinated and fragmented care. Studies suggest that HNHC individuals could benefit from a more holistic approach that coordinates the care they receive and addresses their unmet social needs. Doing so could improve quality of care and quality of life while reducing health care service use

Authored by: Janet Niles, Teresa Litton, and Robert Mechanic for Health Affairs
Topics: Affordable Care Act, Disabilities, Health, Research, Seniors
Shared by Housing Is on Apr 11, 2019

An Initial Assessment of Initiatives to Improve Care for High-Need, High-Cost Individuals in Accountable Care Organizations

Publication
Apr 11, 2019
Janet Niles, Teresa Litton, and Robert Mechanic for Health Affairs
High-need, high-cost (HNHC) individuals are defined as people of all ages living with clinically complex needs and functional limitations who also incur high health care costs or are likely to do so in the near future.