The health of individuals and the health of communities are linked in so many ways, from zoning to access to fresh food, safe housing, safe streets and parks, and proper medical care. How is this growing realization affecting practice for both community development organizations and health care organizations? What does it take for these two separate worlds to partner toward shared goals? Thanks to the 
Getting Health on Board
It’s becoming increasingly common for community development corporations and grassroots housing organizations to have board members from the health care sector. Here's why.
Making Food Deserts Bloom
Finding fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods can be a struggle, but community efforts are striving to fill the void.
Taking Health Into Account
By systematically assessing the health risks of development decisions upfront, health impact assessments can prevent
costly and harmful mistakes.
The Other Health Agenda
While health-care reform has once again grabbed the headlines and the attention of health advocates in the 2008 presidential election, the next occupant of...
Mental Health and Community Development
The community development and mental health fields have a critical opportunity to work together in supporting the mental health of low-income communities.
Staying Ahead of the Age Wave
Groups working with older adults, including many community developers, are crafting a range of creative interventions, from home modifications to service-enriched housing models, to allow seniors to age in place. Will it be enough?
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....
The Right to Stay Put
There is much work to be done around housing and equitable development, but the solution is not simply to move people around. A key challenge is creating real choice.
Leaving Grandma Out in the Cold
The demise of the federal program that funded senior housing construction bodes ill for the increasing numbers of low-income seniors who struggle to afford a decent place to live.
Can San Francisco Get Mixed-Income Public Housing Redevelopment Right?
The HOPE SF program is aiming to explicitly avoid many of the problems mixed-income public housing redevelopments have faced, to create a truly inclusive process.
Under One Roof: Health Care and Social Services in the Same Place
Without steady employment, Olivia and her son found themselves without housing, without food, without healthcare, and without options. It...
Rowhouse Repairs for Health in Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, health care professionals and housing advocates are working together to deliver home repairs to low-income homeowners.
How Organizing for Justice Helps Your Mental Health
How do social justice, organizing, and mental health interact? Shelterforce chats with clinical social worker Dawn Belkin Martinez to find out.
Advocates for Healthy Housing
As public health and housing activists recognized a century ago when they fought for stronger sanitation and health codes, poorly maintained housing causes serious...
Q: Can Supporting Community Development Improve Outcomes for the Health Sector?
Yes! Over 50 percent of premature deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to preventable non-medical factors, specifically behavioral, environmental, and social conditions.
Better Living by Urban Restoration
It is the larger social and cultural environment of a home that creates health, not the housing unit considered on its own, concluded a...
Greening Vacant Lots: Low Cost, Big Effect in Philly
A Philadelphia program is cleaning up abandoned lots, helping formerly incarcerated residents get jobs, and improving the overall health and well-being of neighborhoods.
Community Development: It’s What’s For Dinner
Last week we heard from Alan Mallach and Mindy Thompson Fullilove on different aspects of stable neighborhoods.
Mallach, in his post, looks at some of...
The Tenacity of Dysfunction
The word resilience has different meanings in different fields. In the field of material science, it refers to the ability of a material to...
Shelter Shorts—The Week in Community Development, April 20
NIMBYs, YIMBYs, PHIMBYs-Oh My! | Can Algorithms Make Equitable Cities? | Retail Segregation Takes a Toll | E.R. Visits and "Tough" Neighborhoods | Enough Innovation Already | More...
Aligning Health Systems With Community Development
Hospitals and health systems can’t solve societal challenges alone. But they can play a key role in mobilizing and aligning joint resources to bring positive changes to low-income communities.
The Next Step in Supportive Housing
With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, individual-focused healthy lifestyles—regardless of socioeconomic status—became an increased topic of discussion. Along with clear correlations between...
California’s Endless Housing “Crisis”
In many ways, the recognition of the current “crisis” stems from middle- and upper-income Californians finally being impacted, and using their power to push for solutions that would address their situation. But their solutions ignore another population.
Smaller Cities Are Laboratories for Change
In smaller cities it is typically much easier to engage high levels of leadership, get traction for strategies that are more visible, engage the wider community, build trust, and scale solutions more quickly than in larger areas. Here are a few examples.
Community Building Despite Trauma
The trauma caused by poverty and the systems that reinforce it can short-circuit standard efforts to build community. A new method called “trauma-informed community building” aims to change that.
Webinar: Are Our Neighborhoods Making Us Sick?
Inadequate housing conditions—the presence of lead, radon, water leaks, poor ventilation, pollution or mold—are linked to poor health. But research also shows that even...
Common Sense Is Community Development’s Most Powerful Ally
The title of this post proved itself to be true for us in Duluth, when local organizations got together to address the growing need...
What Happens When a CDC Pivots to a Health-First Focus?
Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation in Cleveland finds that being an early adopter of a community health focus has its advantages.
Don’t Dump on Us
If it were not acceptable for anyone to suffer from substandard housing or the problems of disinvested neighborhoods, then many of the public health issues facing us would be automatically reduced.
How *to* Connect Health and Community Development
A recent Rooflines post explored how not to connect community development and health, urging practitioners to not fall into the trap of “moralizing public...
Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Oct. 12
News from—and affecting—the community development world. This week: fast food swamps, Seattle has too many apartments, criminal justice, basic income pilot, more.
Housing Advocates Track Indoor Environmental Hazards to Spur Improvements
When the community health promoters of San Diego’s Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) say they’re doing pollution testing, many people probably imagine samples from the...
Making the Connections Between Housing and Health
In December, President Barack Obama signed into law the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act that offers health, and dignity to millions of people through access to life-saving water and sanitation. The focus of this legislation will not cost taxpayers a penny more; it simply makes U.S. investment in existing programs smarter, more […]
A Farm-to-Fork Movement, Starting with the Corner Store
One of the more intriguing aspects of the local food movement in the United States is the effort to...
How a Risk-Averse Hospital and a Risk-Taking CDC Built a Functional Partnership
Shelterforce recently spoke with Angela Mingo of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Rev. John Edgar of Community Development for All People to learn more about their health/housing partnership and how it came to be.
Why Food-Oriented Development Is Easier to Implement
You’ve heard of transit-oriented development. But food-oriented development might be easier to generate.
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.
How *Not* to Connect Health and Community Development
A few months ago as I walked to a board meeting of my local CDFI, I passed a memorial to a young man who...
A Look at a Medical, Legal Aid Partnership in New Orleans
A health center has partnered with a legal services agency to better help patients by addressing the social determinants of health. This “medical-legal partnership” is part of a growing trend that’s taking place across the nation.
Medicaid Dollars for Housing?
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary says his department is exploring ideas to pay for non-health services like housing and nutrition with Medicaid, but it’s unclear whether that would, or could, actually happen.
How a Health Impact Assessment Helped House Irish Travellers
An HIA that focused on Irish Traveller housing programs proves successful because it empowered the population.
The Affordable Care Act: Implications for Community Development
Even if you have not tuned out of the long-running debate about the future of health care in the United States, you can be...
Healthy Foods, Strong Communities
Fresh fruits and veggies are good for more than just your health.
Which Agencies Should Pay to End Family Homelessness?
When families have stable housing, the benefits are widespread. And perhaps that has been the problem.
Transforming Vacant Land Into Community Assets
Vacant land activities can be low cost and high impact; the price of failure is not steep, but the return on investment can be high.
Shelter Shorts—The Week in Community Development, April 27
Climate Gentrification | A Marijuana Tax for Housing? | Homeownership Alone Can't Close the Wealth Gap | Illegal ICE Raids on Farms | Keeping An Eye on Opportunity Zones | More...
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.
A Bad Mix: Utility Shut-Offs and Chronic Illnesses
In most states, a household can avoid or delay termination of its utility service due to overdue balances if the shut-off would significantly impact their health. But the process isn’t as simple as it may seem
Healthy Futures Fund to Connect Health and Housing Practitioners
Building affordable housing with integrated health services. Health centers in low-income neighborhoods.These are goals of a $100M investment fund.
Foreclosing on Our Health?
In a dangerous cycle, medical bills are a common cause of foreclosure—and the stress and financial crisis of foreclosure causes an increase in serious health problems.
Green Is Affordable
The affordable housing movement has not only accepted green building, but is making it integral to its work.
Is a Home with Lead Hazards Really “Affordable”?
The cost of housing is not simply the mortgage, rent, and utilities, but the individual and community health, education, and social costs associated with low-quality, unstable, and unhealthy housing.
Health and Community Development Resources
If you want to explore the intersection of health and
community development further, here are some places to start.
When Domestic Violence and Utility Bill Debt Intersect
In Pennsylvania, domestic violence survivors are often not afforded the protections they are entitled to because many people are often unaware of the Responsible Utility Customer Protection Act and its provisions. A three-year pilot program aimed to change that.
Why Health and Housing Partnerships Are Hard
Housing managers and health providers are natural partners for health care programming, but misunderstandings and institutional mismatches can get in the way.
A Marketplace for Health and Housing to Exchange Money—Has the Time Come?
Why would there be a need for a marketplace that values health? The answer is simple: our current “investments” in health are not working.
Organizing for Hospital Community Benefits
Community development corporations need to become more educated about hospital community benefits. This is what can be done to get the process started.
In Schools, Eliminating Poverty Stigma Could End Child Hunger
More Americans live in high-poverty neighborhoods than ever before, according to a recent Century Foundation report, and many of...
Approaching Partnerships Between Health Care Institutions and Community Development Organizations
There isn’t an exact science to forming partnerships. The slow and sometimes messy process requires patience, allies, and trust.
Prescription for a Legal Advocate
When we wrote in 2006 about Boston Medical Center's program to link patients to lawyers who could help improve their...
Doctors Join the Fight Against Speculators
Housing crises are health crises. Toxic mold causes asthma. Lack of heat weakens immune systems. Unaffordability causes stress. Forced choices between paying the rent and paying for medical care or food lead to poor health. Around the country, health care institutions that recognize this 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).
Setting Aside Housing for Frequent Health Care Users
Housing specifically for those who frequently use health care services makes sense on many levels, but it also raises questions about privacy and lining up who pays and who benefits.
Hearts on Fire (Fighting Organizer Burnout)
I have always thought of my movement work as a demanding, aggravating and irresistible lover - one it's impossible to marry, or to leave....
Moving Hospital and Health System Investments Upstream
Across the country, nonprofit hospitals are under intense scrutiny due to the discrepancy between the substantial revenues they generate compared to the level of...
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...
Done Right, Eliminating Food Deserts Result in Community Oases
While eliminating food deserts often involves resources from outside of the community, a neighborhood must maintain control of its assets and identity.
Unsorting Our Cities
To improve the health of residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods, we have to address inequality, not medical care.
Not Just Partners, But Neighbors: Health Care in Affordable Housing Developments
Offering on-site health care in housing developments makes sense. But developing and managing housing and health care facilities can be very different. How do you make them work together?
Financial Incentives Encourage New Partnerships in Housing and Health
If you watch Downton Abbey, as I do, you know that Lord Grantham is becoming an affordable housing developer—much to his consternation. He’s been called on to help build a slate of new homes on a piece of his property in the wake of The Great War. But it was his answer to a question […]
Health and the Spaces Inbetween
Last year, we published a focus issue on health and community development. We called the package “Are Our Neighborhoods...
One Veteran’s Story
Michael Powell's journey from childhood poverty to military service and subsequent struggle with addiction is probably not unlike thousands of others who have served; but in listening to his story, you realize that somewhere along the way it may have become more complicated than it needed to be.
California’s New Environmental Movement
How communities of color, using health and jobs as rallying cries, took on Big Oil -- and won!
Developing Economic, Along with Physical, Health
Sue Joss and Jason Barbosa might seem to be unlikely economic development partners. She is the veteran CEO of a major nonprofit health care...
Financial Metrics Won’t Tell the Full Picture
Cost savings alone do not measure the full value of the collaboration between the health care and housing sectors.
Fall 2018 — Health and Community Development Supplement
In our third supplement, we focus on a coalition's work to lower the number of asthma-related hospital visits from an apartment complex, and how sitting on a porch can be good for your health. Click on the photo to download a copy.
Tools of the Trade: Measuring the Health-Related Returns of Community Development
Partnerships are becoming more the norm and less the exception, but how do we know that they are actually having a good effect on health, well-being, and economic opportunity?
Author Roundtable
Shelterforce authors discuss the roles of place, mobility, and displacement on health and neighborhoods.
Health and Housing: Where Should the Money Come From?
When we published our focus issue on health and housing and neighborhoods, one of the themes that came up in...
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 […]
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.
How This Museum Supports Community Integration and Trauma Recovery
Using artistic expression to de-stigmatize and treat trauma.
Shelter Shorts, The Week in Community Development—Sept. 21
News from—and affecting—the community development world.
Our Financial Reform, Our Health
The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future, by Joseph Stiglitz, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., June 2012. 448 pp. $27.95 (Hardcover). Available on Amazon.
The Intersection of Health Philanthropy and Housing
Health philanthropy and community development have historically worked on separate tracks. That’s changing.
To Save On Medi-Cal Costs, a Bid to Help Homeless Patients With Rent Money
California lawmakers consider devoting an additional $90 million to subsidize rent for homeless patients.
Using Art to Create Community at a Clinic
Arts projects at a Minneapolis clinic created a natural connection between people who might not otherwise interact.
Housing Quality Is Key to Mental Health
Living in substandard housing affects your mental health as well, several studies have found.
Shelter Shorts—The Week in Community Development, April 6
Gentrification Is Bad For One's Health | Housing Teachers-At School | Protecting Space for Local Business | TOD Doesn't Have to Displace | Community Artists Win in Court | More . . .
What Responsibilities Do Institutions Have In Their Communities?
Universities need to take an active interest in maintaining and enhancing community stability.
Vermont’s SASH Program Keeps Seniors in their Homes
The statewide program connects elderly residents with community-based services and saves money in urban areas by reducing emergency room and specialist visits.
Prescription for a New Neighborhood
Housing mobility can complement community revitalization for children with serious health challenges.
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...
Cooking With Health, and Heritage, in Mind
A recent article in The New York Times discussed an initiative to bring fresh, healthy food to a low-income Bronx neighborhood in New York’s...
Better Together
The community development and health sectors can and should work together to reduce health disparities and improve everyone’s health.
When Supportive Housing Isn’t
The rationale behind supportive housing for people with mental disabilities is that pairing individualized services with permanent housing will help them live independently. But one San Francisco advocate sees more neglect than support.
Bridging Divides with Peer-to-Peer Strategies in Public Housing
Peer-to-peer strategies in public housing can keep residents engaged in programs offered within their respective communities by addressing cultural divides, trust issues, and employment barriers.
Keeping Seniors Healthy by Fostering Connections and Community
For high needs seniors with chronic illnesses, health is not merely—or even mostly—a matter for medical professionals.
Condemning Asthma, Not Homes in North Carolina
An apartment complex in North Carolina generated 120 times as many hospital visits as would have been expected for its population, until a creative coalition forced its sale and worked with the new owner to change things.
How the Community Reinvestment Act Can Help Flint
The audacious and callous decisions leading to the tragedy in Flint, Michigan are cruel and beyond comprehension. What is needed is an all-out effort...
Look Outside the Box with Health and Housing Partnerships
Though it seems the connection between health and community development is on everyone’s lips these days, the two sectors are really still at the beginning stages of learning how to work together.