Social Determinants of Health
The Latest
Why Does Habitability Matter? Health and Our Housing Stock
Whether your home is safe and suitable for healthy living depends on a variety of factors. Shelterforce puts habitability under the lens to show how problems like inadequate heating, water damage, and pest infestations negatively affect your health and further exacerbate the housing crisis.
Explore Articles in this Topic
Search & Filter Within this Topic
filter by Content Type
filter by Date Range
search by Keyword
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 was shot and killed a couple […]
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 least-healthy county. The expectation was that […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 them struggle to provide enough healthy food for their children. Children […]
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 increase demand for fresh, locally produced food in low-income neighborhoods. Many […]
From Food Pantries to Food Justice
Is it possible for a family to be truly self-sufficient and provide all of its own food? This is a question that the Office for Social Ministry is grappling with […]
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 principles of what it […]
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 housing conditions, it was a revelation to us, even though […]