Posted in Expert Insights
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently released their updated Culture of Health measures, to track movement toward a nation where everyone, regardless of background or zip code, has a fair and just opportunity for health and well-being. Last year, we wrote about the measures on this blog, demonstrating alignment with Build Healthy Places Principles for Building Healthy and Prosperous Communities.
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This article originally appeared on the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Economy Matters blog on January 3, 2019. As part of our Healthy Communities Initiative blog series, we highlight the role of regional Federal Reserve Banks in supporting and enabling cross-sector collaboration across the community development and health sectors.
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Research is documenting the harmful effects on children when families must keep moving to find a safe, affordable home.
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New case studies show community developers are partnering to create neighborhoods where everyone can be healthier Innovative community developers are making a real difference in the neighborhoods they are revitalizing, creating places that offer the physical, social and economic resources that all people need in order to live healthy lives. Cross-sector collaboration is a given in these projects, as are new ways of thinking about community revitalization. At the Build Healthy Places Network, we are excited by the potential these projects have to create lasting change for low-income communities.
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Trauma-Informed Community Building Sets Stage for Neighborhood Revitalization Susan Neufeld, Vice President of Resident Programs and Services for BRIDGE Housing Corporation (BRIDGE), describes the existing 606-unit Potrero Terrace and Annex housing projects as “an island of poverty in a sea of wealth.” Unlike many distressed public housing complexes that are surrounded by other disadvantaged neighborhoods, residents of Potrero Terrace and Annex, with a median annual income of $14,000, are surrounded by Potrero Hill neighbors making ten times that much.
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Tipping Point: Deep, Neighborhood-Scale Transformation Creates Lasting Change Of the East Lake Meadows public housing project before revitalization, says Carol Naughton of Purpose Built Communities, “the only thing that was working was the drug trade.” Frequently called “Little Vietnam” – as in, a war zone — the Atlanta neighborhood grappled with extreme poverty, violent crime, abysmal educational outcomes and high unemployment. The poorly built, 40-year-old public housing was in severe disrepair. For kids, East Lake Meadows functioned mostly as a pipeline into the Georgia penal system.
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Community Development 2.0—Collective Impact Focuses a Neighborhood Strategy for Health Not all community developers are aware that the work they’re doing has the potential to improve health, but the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) has built health into its strategic plan, and in the neighborhood revitalization work of the San Pablo Area Revitalization Collaborative (SPARC), convened by EBALDC, health is the first priority. The San Pablo Avenue Corridor neighborhood that stretches between downtown Oakland and nearby Emeryville is one of the poorest and most disadvantaged areas of Oakland, California. Here, life expectancy is up to 20 years lower than just a few miles away in the Oakland Hills.
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Holistic Redevelopment to Bring Lasting Change to a Distressed Neighborhood The St. Bernard Public Housing Development was already in severe disrepair and only 75 percent occupied on August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit leaving much of the Bayou District neighborhood submerged in eight feet of water. One of four large public housing complexes in New Orleans, the St. Bernard was notorious for its blighted properties, rampant violence, drug activity, and severe poverty. Schools in the area were among the worst in New Orleans, a state whose schools regularly rank as low as 48th in the nation. Katrina rendered the housing complex uninhabitable, and many of the residents scattered as part of the Katrina diaspora.
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Can a community market improve infant health? Can developing a local entrepreneurship culture reduce the number of babies born prematurely?
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The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) has spent the last 15 years working with thousands of local businesses, investors, and civic leaders who are actively engaged in improving local economies and communities across the U.S. and Canada. These leaders work to support entrepreneurs, drive investment in local businesses, and build equity in their communities.
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Looking at a map of the places they call home, most people can easily point to notably affluent areas versus the ones that have dilapidated homes, under-resourced schools and unsafe sidewalks—places more likely to be cut through by a six-lane highway, or to host a polluting factory rather than a supermarket stacked with fresh food or a tree-shaded playground.
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Children’s hospitals in Ohio are making key investments to address a major cause of poor health — substandard housing.
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This blog reports back from the Housing + Health summit, mentioned in a recent Healthy Community Initiatives blog featuring the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
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As we build collaboration across sectors, storytelling and art that lifts up success stories become more and more important.
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This article was originally posted on the NACEDA website on September 30, 2016.
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As our nation struggles with what is fair and just, and for whom, the urgent call for equity rings loudly. In philanthropy, equity is high on the agenda among major players, for example, the Ford Foundation, Kresge, Kellogg, the California Endowment, and many others. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s new push for a Culture of Health places
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We know that Child Opportunity affects health and varies by zip code. So too a family’s opportunity, especially opportunity to access healthy affordable housing, with low risk of displacement due to gentrification, as explained in this Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brief.
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This blog series features “quick evidence bites” that highlight the connections between neighborhoods and health and the need for cross-sector solutions for sustained impacts. Tweet these facts and share your own @BHPNetwork #ZIPmatters.
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Welcome to The Pulse, the monthly newsletter of the Build Healthy Places Network. Each month we compile a short and sweet round-up of what smart people are talking about, researching, and doing to make neighborhoods and lives healthier. Click here to receive The Pulse in your inbox.
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Recently, Michael Rubinger, the head of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), one of the country’s largest investors in low-income neighborhoods, wrote that “poverty is a massive public health problem.” This is profound.
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Welcome to The Pulse, the monthly newsletter of the Build Healthy Places Network. Each month we compile a short and sweet round-up of what smart people are talking about, researching, and doing to make neighborhoods and lives healthier. Click here to receive The Pulse in your inbox.
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Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been ranked one of the richest counties in the nation, yet 7 percent of its half-million residents live in poverty. Coatesville, a city of 13,000 people, is one such low-income pocket.
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The Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) has long recognized that housing is a powerful social determinant of health. Considerations of health and housing begin at the annual planning level, when research-based housing priorities are set, public-private partnerships are considered, and input from stakeholders forms the plan’s final draft.
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Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies Blog (2/25/15) Not All Hard-Hit Neighborhoods Recover Equally Foreclosures disproportionately hit minority neighborhoods across the U.S. during the housing crisis. In Boston, over 80 percent of foreclosures took place in just five of its 15 planning districts—Dorchester, East Boston, Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Roxbury; nearly 75 percent of the residents in these five districts are non-white, while the remainder of Boston is 70 percent white.
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Does the Earned Income Tax Credit Improve Health?
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