Housing Is Initiative


 
CLPHA’s Housing Is Initiative helps build a future where systems work together to improve life outcomes for low-income people.

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.

Our Work
Housing Is Education:

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. 

 

Housing Is Health:

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.

 

Learn more about our health initiatives.

 

Housing Is Digital Equity:

As our world’s reliance on technology continues to grow, achieving digital equity and bridging the digital divide for disadvantaged populations becomes more and more critical. The digital divide disproportionately affects low-income households and contributes to racial inequities that have long plagued Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC) communities. PHAs are uniquely well-positioned to help advance digital equity given that they house and provide services to some of our nation’s lowest-income and most disconnected families. 

 

Learn more about our digital equity initiatives.

Housing Is-Related News
1.26.22
In November 2020, the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) was awarded a grant from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy to help our public housing authority (PHA) members better protect and serve vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
1.19.22
Maternal health is an issue embedded with racial, health, and housing disparities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Black pregnant persons are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts. Furthermore, the historical and structural institution of racism has worked to deny Black parents the ability to have stable housing and...
1.12.22
From NJ.com: Jersey City residents living in Housing Authority buildings will be able to purchase high-speed internet access at deeply discounted prices and even get it for free, city officials announced Tuesday. The city is partnering with Andrena, a New Jersey-based internet provider, in its latest initiative to expand broadband internet access to public housing complexes, Mayor...
1.12.22
From Next City: Last May, construction kicked off on a Seattle housing project designed specifically for multigenerational working families — a population that’s been vastly overlooked in the construction boom of the past decade.
1.12.22
From KOCO 5 News: There are many Oklahomans like Sherry Crandell who need a helping hand to fill in those nutritional gaps. "When I don't have the money, and I come here, and I get to shop and pick out whatever I want, nothing goes to waste," Crandell said. She told KOCO 5 she's grateful for the Food Connection program at McGuire Plaza, and she's not the only one.
Partner with Us

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.

Special Thanks

The Housing Is Initiative is thankful to our foundation partners who make this cross-system work possible. 

Click here to learn more about our funders.

Learn more about the Housing Is Initiative at housingis.org

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