In communities like Buffalo that struggle with an aging and deteriorating housing stock as well as high poverty and unemployment rates, many children and their families are forced to live in homes that are unhealthy, unsafe and not energy efficient. These factors can contribute to serious problems such as frequent visits to the emergency room for uncontrolled asthma due to mold exposure; poor academic performance due to brain damage from lead poisoning; and increased poverty due to high heating bills. Despite the fact that these issues are all related to housing, the past model for addressing them relies on disparate programs with little or no coordination.
The Green and Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) is a model to redefine home-based health and safety funding and programs so that they are at once more effective in terms of health outcomes and more efficient in terms of cost savings. The GHHI approach also provides economic benefit to families in the form of cost savings, develops career pathways to higher-paying ‘green’ jobs, and produces more stable neighborhoods by increasing the quality of housing stock.
Interventions to address asthma include identification and removal of home-environmental triggers, as well as one-on-one resident education about asthma management and trigger control.
Buffalo's Green and Healthy Homes Initiative is currently in its pilot implementation phase. It is led by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, utilizing the base of organizations originally convened as the Coalition for a Lead-Free Community, and expanded greatly to include service providers in the fields of weatherization/energy efficiency, asthma, and workforce development.