Rx for Housing: Housing is Healthcare
Intro
Public health concerns were the original driver of government intervention in New York City’s housing stock. Historically, creating and enforcing housing quality standards was focused on improving the health of residents in the city and controlling the spread of infectious diseases.
By not fully leveraging a health-based housing policy, the City is missing an opportunity to address ongoing health disparities.
Today, New Yorkers enjoy a higher life expectancy than ever before, several years higher than the national average.1 However, improvements in health outcomes have not been enjoyed equally by all New Yorkers. Decades of health inequities that severely impact New York’s poorest communities and communities of color persist. In New York City and throughout the country, a person’s zip code determines their health. Preventable illnesses remain widespread, in large part due to poor housing conditions. Meanwhile, COVID-19 has emerged, turning the city into the epicenter of a global pandemic. Now more than ever, New York City must vigorously protect the health of residents today, and promote the health of New Yorkers for decades to come: the urgency of the pandemic as well as longstanding health disparities demand it.
Today, housing policy still plays a role in addressing illnesses such as asthma, lead poisoning, and others. However, as medicine has progressed, housing policy has increasingly shifted away from a focus on health. As medical technology has advanced and become more specialized, we have become focused on improving health outcomes primarily through biomedical breakthroughs. As a result, the role of modern housing policy has largely shifted away from a focus on infectious diseases and overall health. Instead of using housing policy to address underlying social and environmental factors that can prevent the spread of illnesses and promote health and wellness, we increasingly rely on healthcare systems to provide care and engineer cures.
By not fully leveraging a health-based housing policy, the City is missing an opportunity to address ongoing health disparities.
Currently, the overriding determinant of health for New Yorkers is their zip code. Given the severity of segregation in our city, race and place are deeply intertwined. In examining health outcomes, the city’s racial health disparities are evident: communities of color suffer worse health outcomes than White communities. Low life expectancy, asthma and asthma hospitalizations, diabetes, maternal and infant mortality, and COVID-19 mortality are among the health outcomes that communities of color experience at worse rates. Healthcare providers are critical to reducing these disparities, but housing policy is crucial as well.
Housing and health policy are inextricably linked. CHPC’s initiative embraces that relationship.
The publication
A NEW LENS FOR NYC HOUSING PLAN: HOUSING PLAN FOR A CITY OF IMMIGRANTS
Housing and health policy are inextricably linked. CHPC’s Rx for Housing Plan directly embraces that relationship.
This housing plan aims to reduce the number of children that develop asthma and are poisoned by lead paint due to poor housing conditions. It aims to reduce the number of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, and the physical and mental health problems that result from it, and treats homelessness as a public health emergency that cannot be accepted as the norm. In doing so, this plan will enable New York City to take steps in addressing longstanding health disparities and disrupt the standard of zip code and race as being key predictors of health. Through a health-based housing policy, this Rx for Housing plan will ensure that all New Yorkers can live healthy lives.
RX for Housing: Housing is Healthcare plan is part of A New Lens for NYC’s Housing Plan, CHPC’s research and education initiative to explore how New York City’s next housing plan could have a broader impact beyond counting units. The next housing plan provides an opportunity for communities and policymakers to widen the discussion, articulate new metrics, and develop a shared vision of housing policy for the city.
Related publications
RX for Housing: Issue Brief
Released at the height of New York City’s COVID-19 pandemic, CHPC’s essay explores the connections between our health and our housing that this crisis has made clearer than ever.
The case for RX for Housing: Issue Brief
CHPC’s issue brief makes the case that housing policy is health policy.
A NEW LENS FOR NYC HOUSING PLAN
RX for Housing: Housing is Healthcare is part of A New Lens for NYC’s Housing Plan, CHPC’s research and education initiative to explore how New York City’s next housing plan could have a broader impact beyond counting units. The next housing plan provides an opportunity for communities and policymakers to widen the discussion, articulate new metrics, and develop a shared vision of housing policy for the city.
Initiative Sponsors
