Preventing or reducing environmental hazards helps preserve housing and strengthens neighborhoods in a variety of ways. Fixing hazards safely typically improves the overall physical condition of homes, extends the useful life of buildings, and reduces long-term housing maintenance and energy costs. This, in turn, can raise community property values and strengthen the tax base, improve public safety, enhance quality of life, and help restore community pride.

To the extent that adverse health impacts are reduced, children will be healthier and perform better in school. Having fewer students with learning disabilities and behavior problems will make it easier for schools to achieve higher standards. Health care costs will be reduced as well. Preventing exposures through making and keeping a home safe protects future generations of children who will live in that home over its useful life.

Housing-related environmental illnesses disproportionately impact communities in need of good jobs and worker training. As demand for safe housing is created by advocacy and organizing, opportunities will be created to train and employ residents who live in affected communities, especially if local groups develop community-based “delivery systems” for making and keeping homes safe. Local groups may be able to start a small community-based business or nonprofit subsidiary that delivers healthy housing repair and maintenance services. Investing funds in healthy housing interventions carried out by such businesses promotes the economic health of the community as a whole.

Advocating for solutions to housing-related environmental health hazards through community organizing is also a powerful way to build community leadership and power. Advocacy usually is more effective when large numbers of people affected by the problem organize and mobilize in support of solutions. Organizing to address this issue also will increase leadership skills among those involved and make government more accountable and responsive as well. Families will also gain strength from learning about how to protect their children. Successful efforts will create valuable collaboration between the public and private sectors, and will do the same within government, among housing, health, finance, and environmental agencies. Effective local programs can attract federal and foundation funding to affected communities.

For the past several years, the Alliance and numerous community organizations and experts from around the country have worked together to explore the potential power of investigating high-risk housing for health hazards and using the results in organizing and advocacy campaigns to seek solutions to address unhealthy housing. Some organizations have already carried out limited investigations and leveraged the results into impressive victories, demonstrating the power of this approach to organizing and advocacy for healthy housing.

These success stories demonstrate that integrating the technical tools of home hazard investigation with the techniques of community organizing and advocacy can be a powerful way to create community-based solutions. For more information about this approach, see the Community Environmental Health Resource Center (CEHRC), a project of the Alliance and grassroots groups working for social justice in low-income communities around the country. Of particular interest on the CEHRC website is a publication titled Holding Property Owners and Government Agencies Accountable: Discussion Paper on Prevention Goals and Strategies To Complement Housing Hazard Investigations.

Around the country, local organizations and agencies have developed other creative and effective ideas, projects, and programs to prevent childhood lead poisoning. Several Alliance publications that catalog these are available. Publications include “Innovative Strategies for Addressing Lead Hazards in Distressed and Marginal Housing: A Collection of Best Practices” and “Action Plan To Make Housing Lead Safe.”