Housing and Child Health: Safety Net Strategies, Regulations and Neighborhood Challenges

Abstract: “Improving Neighborhoods: An Innovative Program of Hospital-Community Collaboration” Although often overlooked as a key factor in health status, stable and affordable housing plays a critical role in protecting children and adolescents. This article examines possibilities as well as challenges in health-oriented housing interventions for children, with particular attention to understanding how the law—and its limits—shape the nature of non-profit housing work. First, the authors discuss the scholarly literature on the relationship between health and housing to consider why healthcare institutions generally and children’s hospitals specifically might enter into the challenging fray of housing advocacy for the poor. They then discuss the history and motivational basis of one initiative undertaken by a children’s hospital to increase housing stock and stability—the Healthy Homes (HH) initiative sponsored by Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Focusing on the “nuts and bolts” of such programs, the authors discuss what hospitals must do to actualize such a program. They examine the key mechanisms that the Hospital and its partners have found to be critical to acquiring, building and rehabilitating, and ultimately getting new owners into stable, high-quality homes. They also examine the community relationships and intricacies for the success of the project. The basis for this research includes a series of interviews with key stakeholders, a walking tour of the primary neighborhood impacted by the neighborhood, as well as analysis of HH-related web sites and relevant scholarly literatures. Ultimately, the article examines HH to offer general guidance that other children’s hospitals might use to engage their own programs. Along the way the article catalogs best practices and lessons learned, both within existing legal mechanisms and more informally