Housing as a Health Issue

Envision a society that fully connects the usually disparate worlds of health and housing. Clinicians would implement strategies that feature “housing as a vaccine” to prevent illness and disability. Professionals from both worlds would routinely link lodging with counseling, case management, and other services to ensure that supportive housing more robustly meets the needs of vulnerable people. Officials would blend funding streams from health departments and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to address health equity and affordability challenges for the estimated 38.9 million households (2015) that are spending more than 30% of income on housing.