What Does Health Have to Do With Affordable Housing?

Can your community be healthy without housing that is affordable?

My favorite discussions around housing is its connections to many other important facets of a community that supports a good quality of life. Housing plus health, housing plus transportation, and housing plus education are all interesting to me. Luckily, the non-profit I work for partners with a range of public agencies and non-profits to bring awareness to the connection between these topics.

One of these collaborations resulted into the Healthy Communities Forums, which is organized by elected officials, public agencies, non-profits, and residents of San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. They are held once a month and are on a different topic each time, such as Access to Healthy Food, Benefits of Electric Driving and Walking, etc.

Join our . The program begins at 6pm with a welcome from the Mayor and Vice-Mayor, followed by a presentation from the San Mateo County Health System.

The presentation will focus on connecting affordable housing and health. Learn how and why where you live shapes the health and quality of your life. Our current obesity and other preventable diseases rates are so high that if we do nothing, our children will be the first generation who will not live as long as their parents, according to the San Mateo County Health System.

Health begins in our communities, so we want to ensure our communities are built to encourage healthy choices. Housing built near transit, schools, and parks show increased rates of walking and outside activity.  

Housing that is affordable is important to all segments of our population. It is important to the health of our children, so that they can have a stable home and will not have to move from one school to another. It is important to the health of our seniors, so they can age in place near their family and friends.  

After the presentation, we will break out into discussion groups by city so that participants can discuss the topic as it pertains to them and their community. No charge, light dinner provided. Sign up under “Upcoming Forums” at www.healthycommunitiesforum.org

This forum is part of San Mateo County’s Annual Affordable Housing Week – a week of events that local decision makers, community leaders, and residents are invited to participate in to learn more about housing issues in our county. Most are free and open to the public. My favorite event from past years is a forum with previously homeless people who turned their lives around after finding stable housing through one of our partner organizations. Their stories were so inspiring! For a list of all our events, please visit www.hlcsmc.org/ahw-2012.