Dr. Stephen Sills (Center for Housing and Community Studies) received new funding from the Reinvestment Fund, Inc./Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the project “Invest Health Greensboro Supplemental Funds for Technical Assistance, Site Visits, and Learning Exchanges.”
Safe and affordable housing can act as an upstream “prescription” for asthma. Greensboro is presently positioned to engage and develop upstream policy and program solutions to tackle health issues that are exacerbated by substandard and unhealthy housing. By investing in affordable housing and supportive services, municipalities and health systems can leverage financial resources to improve housing quality. The researchers’ pipeline of building projects will address the link between substandard housing and asthma and build a healthier community with affordable, quality housing opportunities for more than 26,000 individuals in the city who suffer from chronic asthma (CDC 500). The goal is to meet the needs of those most affected by 1) targeting substandard homes in neighborhoods most impacted by respiratory illness, while 2) helping to improving the quality of existing housing and reduce household utility and healthcare costs, and thereby 3) improving health conditions and reducing disparities. This project requires collaboration and continued systems/policy changes by institutional actors as well as direct input from those most affected. The project brings together a team of community members, housing advocates, a major health system, developers, municipal officials, and data scientists.
The Supplemental Funding from Invest Health is for Targeted Technical Assistance, Multi-Team Technical Assistance, as well as Site Visits/Learning Exchanges. This will includes travel to/from Spokane Washington in partnership with the IH Spokane team; a series of technical assistance webinar/virtual convening open to other IH teams (Policy Link, Corporation for Supportive Housing, Abt); Capacity building in our local team through CSH Training Subscriptions and attendance at the Center for Community Progress Reclaiming Vacant Spaces Conference; and most importantly face-to face technical assistance meetings meetings with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Charlotte, North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, North Carolina Housing Coalition, and Duke Law School Community Enterprise Clinic.
