Better, Faster, Cheaper Ways to Finance Supportive Housing
A few cities in the U.S. are addressing homelessness by experimenting with different financing vehicles that are helping to preserve and construct more supportive housing.
Forget Red and Blue States: Go Green for Better Jobs, Health, and Environment
How do you win an election in any red Southern state? If you are running as a senator, the conventional wisdom is you condemn government as an enemy of working families.
Better Together
The community development and health sectors can and should work together to reduce health disparities and improve everyone’s health.
Seven Tips to Help You Forge Health and Housing Partnerships
About 80 percent of a person’s health status can be attributed to non-medical factors such as housing and income.
The Connection Between Water, Justice, and Health
Our talk with Radhika Fox, the CEO of the US Water Alliance, about water justice and ways to build stronger communities.
Foreclosures Are Making People Sick
[Editor's note: Shelterforce continues to discuss the connection between health and housing, and most recently devoted an entire issue to the topic. The op-ed below originally appeared in American Banker on November 3, 2014.] While foreclosure activity has declined since the peak of the mortgage crisis, millions of families are still at risk of losing […]
Pollution, Place, and the Unnecessary Tragedy of Premature Death: Lessons for COVID-19
In Louisville, low-income and Black populations living in neighborhoods dealing with decades of industrial pollution are now suffering the worst public health outcomes of COVID-19.
Filling the Affordable Housing Financing Gap in the Gulf Coast Region
A new approach to pooling financing? Gulf Coast Housing Partnership’s initiative combines LIHTC credits and low-interest loans from national Medicaid managed care organizations for projects that blend affordable housing and onsite health centers.
Health Care Confronts Challenge to Shift from “Volume to Value”
Health care, as we all know, is a big business. U.S. hospitals alone have $782 billion in total annual expenditures, which is roughly five...
Doctors Join the Fight Against Speculators
Around the country, health care institutions have started to employ lawyers onsite to help patients fight landlords for better housing conditions or qualify for housing subsidies (plus a range of other legal supports that will generally have direct effect on their health).
How Much Time Does Trauma-Informed Community Building Take? It’s Complicated
Building trust takes time. How does that factor into project timelines, and what recommendations do housing development leaders have for others seeking to shift to more resident-centered practices.
A New Responsibility for Children’s Hospitals: The Health of Neighborhoods
Children's hospitals in Ohio are making key investments to address a major cause of poor health: substandard housing.
Rural Hospital Struggles Are Also an Economic Development Issue
Aside from the health implications, the closure of a hospital in a rural community deeply impacts the area’s economic wellbeing. But in some cases, it can be avoided.
Renovating Senior Complexes to Be Green, Healthy, and Connected
Orness Plaza is one of the only public housing developments geared toward seniors and the disabled in Mankato, Minn., the state’s fourth largest city....
Urban Institute Report Highlights Health and Housing Links
There have been many studies, reports, and articles throughout the years that highlight the correlation between a person's housing and their health. (We even...
Housing Policy Must Change in Wake of COVID-19
COVID-19 will hurt the low-income and housing insecure the most. We must act now to protect them—and ensure safe housing for all going forward. Here's how.
Getting the Lead Out: Controlling Lead Paint Hazards in Housing
Lead poisoning remains the foremost environmental health risk to American children, with just under one million children with elevated lead levels. While the average...
Redlining and Mental Health: Connecting the Dots Across Poverty, Place, and Exclusion
A side by side comparison of historical redlining maps reveals a strong spatial relationship between a history of systemic exclusion in the form of redlining and poor mental health.
Are Planners Responsible for Public Health?
Could planners have an effect on waistlines around the Beltway? Maryland’s Prince George’s County and Virginia’s Fairfax County are examining how land use and...
Health Care and Community Development Partnerships in the Time of COVID-19
For health care institutions and community development organizations that focus on low-income communities’ social determinants of health, this year has been a doozy. The...