Advocating for healthy housing has long been a key strategy in RAMP’s effort to reduce the inequitable exposure to asthma triggers in low-income communities and communities of color. As one of the founding members of the California Healthy Housing Coalition, we are proud to join our healthy housing partners and colleagues across the country in celebrating National Healthy Homes Month.
This year’s theme, “Healthy Housing for All,” takes on added significance given the events of the moment. People are spending even more time in their homes because of the global pandemic, while the death of George Floyd and others demand us to name the ways racism and injustice have been ingrained in our systems and policies so that we can begin to change them.
National Healthy Homes Month’s call for “Healthy Housing for All” is an opportunity to make clear that unhealthy housing conditions disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities of color. That harm extends beyond asthma and other physical and mental health impacts to employment, education and other corners of our lives.
“Healthy Housing for All” is also an opportunity for reflection. Does our work help those most in need? Does our work explicitly call out injustice? Have we built the right partnerships? Do the solutions we support fundamentally alter the structures that create the inequities we see in our work?
We’d like to thank all our healthy housing partners and colleagues – tenants’ rights organizers, code enforcement agencies, housing and community development advocates, and public health professionals – for their dedication to making housing healthier and commitment to the collaboration needed to truly create Healthy Housing for All.
Warm regards,
RAMP staff
