Collaborations — whether internal, external or cross-sector — are essential to advancing healthy housing efforts. But what, exactly, do those collaborations look like?
For three of the municipalities participating in the recent Healthy Housing Community of Practice, those collaborations were as unique as the challenges and contexts the municipalities faced, demonstrating again that no two cities, towns or villages are alike.
What is similar among them, however, is that each municipality experienced the benefits of collaboration, leading to an approach tailored to their community and its immediate needs regarding housing and health challenges. As a result, each made important steps forward in addressing those challenges, emerged with a realistic and clear path forward and laid the groundwork for more and deeper collaborations.
Below is a brief summary of three Community of Practice cities’ approaches to building collaborations highlighting:
- the healthy housing challenges they were addressing,
- their key collaborators and
- what action resulted.
Collaboration Inspires More Collaboration in New Orleans, LA
The Challenge
- Old housing stock, frequent threats of mold, pest and saltwater intrusion issues
- Challenges with coordination across city departments
Key Collaborators
- Other city departments, including Health, Office of Community Assistance Investments, Office of Community Development, Safety and Permits, and more
- Community members
- Home inspectors
Action
New Orleans, like many other municipalities, needed to first face a common challenge: information was not flowing efficiently between departments. Each department was working on a different aspect of the problems related to healthy housing, with no concerted effort, making the sharing of resources, data and solutions difficult. The city team saw the Community of Practice initiative as an opportunity to bring together competing interests, find a common language and design a shared strategy. With representation from six city departments, they built a structure for moving healthy housing work forward. With this initial collaboration established, they were then able to develop a road map to bring the next collaborators to the table: community members and home inspectors.
A Team Approach to Learning Best Practices in Grand Rapids, MI
The Challenge
- Lead paint hazards in rental properties
Key Collaborators
- Other city departments
- County public health
- Local hospital system
- Rental property owners
Action
Prior to their work in the Community of Practice, Grand Rapids had created and approved ordinance language that integrated lead safety issues into the city’s rental certification. The next step was implementation, which required property-owner buy-in. Grand Rapids assembled a diverse team to move things forward consisting of city staff, county public health and hospital representatives. Despite their differing perspectives and priorities, the team united in a common goal: to learn implementation strategies from other cities. Together, they explored how other cities in the cohort, such as Rochester, New York, had achieved alignment, then developed their own plan that included a program to engage, motivate and support property owners in lead hazard control.
Solutions Emerge with the Right Expertise at the Table in Norfolk, VA
The Challenge
- Initially: competing priorities, multiple issues related to health and housing, lack of concerted effort
Key Collaborators
- Other city departments including Housing and Community Development, Neighborhood Services, Code Enforcement, Human Services and Public Health
Action
Norfolk assembled their diverse team of collaborators as a way to focus and chart a clear path forward. As they were exploring possibilities, a notification from HUD about a dire lead-exposure situation in their city gave the team a real-time opportunity to respond. They quickly surveyed the team’s access to resources and data, and knowledge about lead exposure—recognizing there was a gap in understanding how to respond as well as an opportunity to leverage their multi-departmental expertise. The timing of this chance request from HUD provided the team both the focus and insight the needed into how they could work together to make progress on an issue. It also resulted in the creation of a road map that laid the groundwork for exploring additional collaborations with a variety of organizations that support housing and resident health issues, including a local housing resource board, a group of local pastors and the district public school.
Though the city teams participating in the Healthy Housing Community of Practice reflected a diversity of U.S. cities, they shared a collaborative experience that was very different from the often siloed nature of government work, which made it easier for them to envision future collaborations and ways forward.
Learn More
Ready to use the NLC’s healthy housing resources to strengthen your community? Register now for a webinar on Wednesday, March 26 at 2 PM ET. You’ll learn more about the new Healthy Housing Message Guide toolkit and how to use it to help your residents.
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