Connecting the Dots between
Housing and Health
Through Education and Outreach
Loyedi Marie Waite
The Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes
The Office of Lead Hazard Control and
Healthy Homes (OLHCHH)
• OLHCHH is committed to providing safe and healthy homes for
all families and children by addressing housing conditions that
threaten the health of residents, coordinating disparate health
and housing agendas, supporting key research, targeting
enforcement efforts, and providing tools to build sustainable
local programs that mitigate housing-related health hazards.
• To this end, we will drastically and permanently change the way
housing, energy, and health concerns are addressed in
jurisdictions across the country.
Why the need to educate?
• Most people spend at least half of every day inside
their homes.
• An unhealthy home is connected to poor health.
• According the American Housing Survey 6 million
homes has significant health hazards (need source).
• These findings confirm that highest frequency of
hazards are in low income and minority homes.
• More children have asthma in homes with smoke,
mold, or roaches.
Why the need to educate?
Unhealthy housing conditions may seem like cosmetic
problems, but hazards can lurk where you least expect
them:
• Peeling paint can contain lead
• Too much moisture can result in mold
• Clutter can shelter insects and rodents
• And some deadly hazards are invisible, such as
carbon monoxide and radon
Why the need to educate?
The housing problems that can make us sick are
interconnected:
• Lack of ventilation (airflow) keeps poisons in and
builds up moisture.
• Moisture causes deteriorated paint, attracts and
sustains pests, and leads to mold.
• Pest make holes that become leaks and make
people use poisonous pesticides.
What are we doing?
• Interagency Strategy for Action
– Goal 4: Educate the Public – Interagency Outreach
Campaign
• Healthyhomes.hud.gov
• Disaster Recovery
• Federal and Non-federal Partnerships– “It Takes a Village”
• Smoke-Free Housing
Strategy for Action
●
On February 4, 2013, HUD, with the U.S.
Department of Energy, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.
Department of Health and Human
Services, and the White House Council
on Environmental Quality
unveiled Advancing Healthy Housing –
A Strategy for Action.
●
Goal Four: Educate the Public about
Healthy Homes. The Strategy promotes
adoption of a public communications
campaign to help people connect the dots
between their health and their home.
Healthyhomes.hud.gov
●
Key vehicle in Departmental Healthy Homes outreach
portfolio
• Designed to engage consumers in healthy homes
concepts
• Collaborative Effort
• Priority outreach product for Healthy Homes Work Group
• Multi-department buy-in: HUD, HHS, EPA, USDA, and
DOE
• Meets federal website requirements/best practices
• Information is centralized, succinct and consistent
• Creates efficiencies in information development and
dissemination
Healthyhomes.hud.gov
Site goals:
• Provide easy-to-use hub for actionable
healthy homes information and tools
– There are over 1,100 federal consumer web pages
related to health homes!
• Increase awareness of “Healthy Homes”
concept
• Focus on prevention
Healthyhome.hud.gov
Site goals:
• Promote health literacy
• Translate research into action to motivate
behavior change around the 8 healthy homes
principles
Disaster Recovery
National Disaster Recovery Framework
• Recovery Support Key Functions:
– #4 Housing
• HUD- lead coordinating federal agency
Where does OLHCHH fit in?
– We have expertise! Fill the gaps in the
established process
•
How are we doing this?
Disaster Recovery
Activities in the works:
• Indoor Air Quality Working Group
– Final Recommendation of guiding standards for multiple
topics
• Disaster Recovery Videos (2)
• Disaster Recovery Guide for key audiences:
– Volunteer Agencies and Victims/Consumers
• Disaster Recovery Mobile App:
– Mobile Device- Recovery Guide and connection to key
resources
Disaster Recovery
Activities in the works continued:
• Rebuilding a Healthy Home Workshop
– To address the established recovery response process and
how HH principals and projects can enhance established
response activities
– Look for this opportunity in early November of 2014
• Adding Disaster Recovery to materials and products
already produced and established in OLHCHH
– Office Website, Healthyhomes.hud.gov, Healthy Homes
Strategic Plan, exhibits and partnerships.
It Takes A Village
The importance of Partnerships
America needs cross-sector partnerships and
commitment of multiple players to move the dial
on health homes awareness.
•
•
•
•
EPA – Working to end Lead-base paint poisoning
USDA – Grassroots initiatives on Healthy Homes
Other Federal Partners (DOE, CPSC, HHS/CDC)
Grantees, Not-Profit Agencies, other Organizations
HUD and EPA
Collaborating – Providing resources to Grantees
USDA - Healthy Homes Partnership
Linking resources of the USDA’s National Institute
of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) and the
state land-grant universities with HUD for a public
outreach education program that will reduce
housing deficiencies and risks associated with
childhood diseases and injuries.
Healthy Homes Partnership/Network
• The network will be a key feature in the new
website
– Connect consumers with agencies on topics of
interest and resources.
– All partnership request forms must be approved by
OLHCHH before posting to site
– Not an advertising network
Stop by the exhibit booth to drop off your interest
card and see a draft of the request form partners
will fill out.
HUD’s Smoke-Free Housing Initiative
Introduction
• Background and history of HUD’s SmokeFree (SF) Housing Initiative
• Current HUD SF Housing notices
• Policy Challenges Around Smoke Free Public
Housing
• HUD Smoke-free housing toolkits
• Future Activities
HUD’s Smoke-Free Housing Initiative
History of HUD’s Initiative
• Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes (OLHCHH)
organized a SF housing session at the National Healthy Homes
conference in 2008.
• OLHCHH worked with HUD Office of Public and Indian Housing
(PIH) to develop a notice encouraging public housing authorities
(PHAs) to adopt SF housing policies (published July, 2009;
reissued May, 2012)
• HUD Office of Multifamily Housing issued a similar notice in
September, 2010
• Federal Register Notice published 10/4/12 soliciting feedback on
HUD initiative and best practices for implementation
HUD’s Smoke-Free Housing Initiative
Background
HUD releases SF Housing Toolkits in June,
2012
• Two Toolkits:
– Owners/Management Agents
– Residents
Why smoke-free public housing
policy?
Early this year, the 50th
Anniversary of the Surgeon
General’s Report on Smoking
and Health was released
Why smoke-free public housing
policy?
• Report covers three major topics:
o Historical and trend information on tobacco
use over last 50 years.
o New findings on health effects of smoking.
o Call to action—how we can end the
continuing tobacco use epidemic.
Why smoke-free public housing
policy?
The Report highlighted that:
• More than 440,000 Americans die every year
from smoking.
• Eight million Americans live with at least one
serious chronic disease from smoking.
• Cost to U.S economy is $193 billion a year.
o Nearly $96 billion in direct medical costs.
o Additional $97 billion in lost productivity.
Why smoke-free public housing
policy?
• The U.S. Surgeon General concluded that
there is NO risk-free level of exposure to
secondhand smoke (SHS).
• Smoking is the leading cause of fire deaths in
multifamily buildings.
• Secondhand smoke is a known carcinogen
• SHS migrates between units in a multifamily
building
Implementation Tips to Remember
• Common themes in PIH and Housing Notices:
– Adoption of SF policies is strongly encouraged, but
not mandatory
– Health benefits outweigh risks to health, improves
fire safety
– There is no Constitutional “right to smoke”
– Owner/PHA/Board has discretion to apply policy to
some or all of their housing units and decide how
policies are structured
– Access to smoking cessation benefits important;
promote use of toll-free Quit-lines; partnerships
THANK YOU!
Loyedi Marie Waite
Marketing and Outreach Specialist
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes
Email: Loyedi.M.Waite@HUD.gov
Phone: 202-402-6052