Housing Is helps broaden and deepen efforts to align housing, education, and health organizations to produce positive long-term outcomes for those experiencing poverty. Collaboration across systems and sectors—through shared goals, focused resources, and coordinated efforts—strengthens our collective ability to serve the needs of low-income individuals and families effectively and efficiently.
Public housing offers many low-income children, families, and seniors critical stability, but fragmented service delivery systems and siloed policymaking often fail to address social determinants of low-income individuals and families holistically. This often results in stagnant effectiveness and costly inefficiencies.
CLPHA leads the affordable housing industry as a convener of partners across sectors who are committed to aligning different systems and developing interdisciplinary programs to address a variety of essential needs in communities across the country. From promoting data sharing and shared accountability to encouraging cross-sector training and evidence-based interventions, our work fosters improved, sustained alignment and collaboration.
CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative recognizes the key role public housing authorities can play in a variety of educational efforts benefiting both low-income children and adults. Research has shown that housing stability has a significant impact on children’s school performance and long-term outcomes, such as graduation rates and post-secondary activities. Housing authorities are actively exploring how they can align with and add value to local approaches that aim to improve educational outcomes.
Learn more about our education initiatives.
Public housing residents are not only economically disenfranchised, but also experience higher rates of chronic conditions and diagnoses such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and anxiety/depression. PHAs and their health partners can improve low-income people’s health and wellbeing by enhancing built environments, providing preventative health resources, and increasing access to healthcare services.
If you and your organization would like to learn how to join CLPHA in their cross-system efforts, please reach out to us at housingis@clpha.org, and join the Housing Is Clearinghouse at housingis.org.
The Housing Is Initiative is thankful to our foundation partners who make this cross-system work possible.
The Trump Administration released its full fiscal year 2020 (FY20) budget proposal on March 18, 2019, and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies (THUD) released their FY20 funding bill on May 22, 2019. On June 25, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 277-194 to approve a $383 billion spending package of five appropriations bills, including funding for the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban...
On February 14, by a vote of 83 to 16, the U.S Senate passed a bipartisan appropriations package to fund nine departments and other agencies, including the U.S Department of Housing Urban Development, through September 2019. The spending deal passed the U.S. House of Representatives later that evening by a vote of 320 to 128. President Trump signed the appropriations bill into law on February 15.
The final version of the deal keeps intact the conference agreement for the FY19...
Public housing plays a critical role in our nation's infrastructure, providing families with a stable home and helping them gain access to other services, including education and health.
With the explosion of the opioid epidemic over the last decade, communities have seen alarming increases in substance abuse and drug-related deaths. Given the scale and urgency of these issues, officials at the local, state, and federal level have sought to prevent and treat addiction and drug overdoses. These efforts have involved a wide range of partners including public health departments and partners in other sectors.
From WHYY:
Chester’s Ruth Bennett Community Farm is a vibrant oasis in a desert of dull brick and lifeless concrete.
Tucked below Interstate 95 at the top of a cul-de-sac, the 2-acre farm teems with life: organic produce, wildflowers, and a host of winged insects that flutter between the two.
“This is like a resurrection of life here,” assistant manager Malik Savage said during a recent visit.
From Education Dive:
The Stable Homes Stable Schools initiative — launched in May to help Minneapolis Public Schools students and their families pay rent and maintain consistent housing while also offering wraparound services — already has 125 families with 396 children enrolled in the program and hopes to attract more than 600 students, the Minnesota Daily reported.
From the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles' (HACLA) press release:
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
On Monday, Vancouver and Washington state officials gathered alongside community members to celebrate the grand opening of Caples Terrace, a new public housing project offering affordable units to young adults who have aged out of foster care or fallen into homelessness.
Christina LaCelle, 20, could barely contain her excitement. She and her 3-month-old daughter Vivianne were just weeks away from moving into their very first apartment at the new complex.
From West Seattle Blog:
For the fourth consecutive year, West Seattle Elementary students got a first-day-of-school welcome like no other: The “Be There Rally.” 2016 was the first time community members were invited to greet and inspire the students. The event has continued growing in size and reputation, and this year drew more citywide dignitaries than ever. More on them later. First – WSE principal Pamela McCowan-Conyers got to tell the crowd all about her school.
