bringing green, healthy housing to low income populations

8/6/2019 Bringing Green, Healthy Housing to Low Income Populations

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Meaning of Climate Change

Cap-and-Trade Policiesand Consumers

A Mandatory Cap-and-Trade Program andEnvironmental Justice

Rural Communities and theCarbon Offset Market

Green, Healthy Housing

Lawyers and HolisticGreen Communities

Weatherization Assistance fo

Affordable Multifamily HousiUrban Agriculture

Green-Collar Jobs

State and Regional Land-Use Transportation Planning

Utilities and the Smart Grid

Health of Communities

Adaptation to Climate Chang

Climate Changeand a Green EconomyNew AdvocAcy

opportuNities

Volume 44, Numbers 5–6

September–October 2010



Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal o Poverty Law and Policy n September–October 2010 249

Abang Ojullu remembers all too vividly the day she put her eldest daughter on asmall ambulance jet bound or Sioux Falls. The child’s asthma attack was toosevere or doctors in rural Worthington, Minnesota, to treat. Her daughter

Ananaya had experienced a long litany o maladies in her short lie. Some winters thegirl’s asthma was compounded by pneumonia. Frequent hospitalizations and doctor

visits meant missed school days. For two years, Abang made the hour-long drive toSioux Falls once a month so that Ananaya could see a specialist. But last winter, sixmonths ater moving into the newly renovated Viking Terrace Apartments, Ananayadid not get sick once, her mother says. Neither did any o her ve other children, al-though in the past each had bouts o asthma that oten required nebulizer treatments.

Originally built in 1978, the sixty-unit apartment complex has a modern laundry, which lets Abang ollow the doctor’s advice to wash blankets and clothes oten. Theapartment complex added a playground with benches or adults. Having that pleasant,sae environment—as opposed to the busy street where they used to live—means thatthe Ojullu kids are getting much more exercise and resh air. The apartment complexadded a resh air supply and a high-eciency geothermal heating system.

Robin Jacobs

Staff Attorney

Community Law Center

3355 Keswick Rd. Suite 200

Baltimore, MD 21211

410.366.0922

[email protected]

David E Jacobs

Director of Research

Jill Breysse

Program Manager

National Center or Healthy Housing

5025 Hawthorne Pl. NW

Washington, DC 20016

202.607.0938

[email protected]

[email protected]

HOME

Is Where the Health Is

Bringing Green, Healthy Housing to Low-Income Populations

By Robin Jacobs, David E. Jacobs, and Jill Breysse

mailto:[email protected]








Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal o Poverty Law and Policy n September–October 2010250

Home Is Where the Health Is: Bringing Green, Healthy Housing to Low-Income Populations

The physical improvements, along witha health education campaign, are parto a joint project aimed at demonstrat-ing the health benets o green building principles. Participants include the Na-tional Center or Healthy Housing, the

Blue Cross and Blue Shield o Minne-sota Foundation, the Southwest Minne-sota Housing Partnership, and the Cen-ter or Sustainable Building Research atthe University o Minnesota. For Abang Ojullu, who grew up in Ethiopia—and orall parents—healthy housing conditionsmake or healthier children.

At a time when health expenses runrampant, climate change poses dispro-portionate threats to low-income com-munities, inequities in housing persist,

and environmental justice concerns areinvolved in all these problems, reha-bilitating and building afordable greenhousing promises to be one step towarda solution.1 While most advocates o-cus on the environmental advantages o green housing, we discuss how, basedon a Minnesota public health and hous-ing study, green rehabilitation o low-income housing can have positive healthbenets or low-income people. First wesketch the background issues leading tothe advent o afordable green housing.

Next we look at the health benets o asuccessul green housing rehabilitationin Minnesota and how health improve-ments were achieved through choosing green, healthy building criteria, orging

productive partnerships, and engaging residents. Last we identiy areas or u-ture studies and advocacy to bolster low-income green housing rehabilitation.

Background

Advocates have long been concernedabout the dangers posed to low-incomeresidents living in communities withoutdecent and sae housing, adequate accessto health care, and environmental pro-tections. Green building principles mayhelp overcome some o these concerns,especially as green housing expands tothe afordable housing market and re-sults in environmental, economic, andhealth benets to low-income housing development residents.

Triple Threat: Housing, Health, and the Environment.Three interrelated injustices—housing inequality, dispropor-tionate health care, and environmentalrisks—plague low-income, minority com-munities. Redlining, “slum clearance,”segregated public and other subsidizedhousing, and racially restrictive cove-nants are among the many ways in whichthe housing inequality that persists to-day came into existence in the UnitedStates.2 A segregated health care system

was the precursor to the disproportion-ate health care or minority populationstoday.3 Environmental justice challengesthe disproportionate concentration o en-

vironmental risks in disempowered com-munities.4 While initially ocused on the

1Centers or Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Department o Health and Human Services, NHE [National Health

Expenditure] Fact Sheet (last modifed June 29, 2010), http://bit.ly/bBjZvM (national health expenditures reached $2.3

trillion ($7,681 per person) in 2008, and this amount is expected to grow about 6 percent per year between 2009 and

2019); Maxine Burkett, Just Solutions to Climate Change: A Climate Justice Proposal for a Domestic Clean Development

Mechanism, 56 Buffalo law review 169, 173–88 (2008) (explores evidence o climate change and disproportionate eect on

low-income populations and communities o color, using Arctic villages and New Orleans as examples); Gregory D. Squires,

Urban Development and Unequal Access to Housing Finance Services, 53 New york law sChool law review 255, 256–59

(2008–2009) (describes housing and economic inequality as it relates specifcally to recent surge in subprime mortgage crisis

and eect such inequality has on poor neighborhoods); David E. Jacobs et al., Physical Inrastructure and Disparities (March

2010) (commissioned or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Conerence on Environmental Justice) (on fle with David E.Jacobs) (documents ongoing inequalities in housing, transportation, and water).

2Deborah Kenn, Paradise Unfound: The American Dream of Housing Justice for All , 5 Boston university PuBliC interest law

Journal 69, 84–90 (1995).

3Sidney D. Watson, Race, Ethnicity and Quality of Care: Inequalities and Incentives, 27 ameriCan Journal of law anD meDiCine

203, 205–10 (2001).

4The environmental justice movement began as a grassroots movement in the 1960s and 1970s (Carolyn Graham &

Jennier B. Grills, Environmental Justice: A Survey of Federal and State Responses, 8 villanova environmental law Journal 237,

239 (1997)). A national movement did not emerge until the 1980s, when opponents o the siting o a polychlorinated

biphenyl plant in an Arican American community in North Carolina attracted national attention (id.). Activism surrounding

environmental justice issues ocused primarily on reacting to polluting acilities located in historically disempowered

communities (id. at 258). Clearinghouse review’s 1995 special issue covered a range o environmental justice tools and issues

or legal aid attorneys (29 Clearinghouse review 343 (1995)). a 2005 review special issue was devoted to Environmental Justice

or Children (39 Clearinghouse review 1 (May–June 2005)).

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impact o locating industrial and wasteacilities, environmental justice now o-cuses more broadly on many other envi-ronmental issues.5 The newly emerging ocus on afordable green housing aimsto tackle these interrelated housing,

health, and environmental injustices.Green Housing’s Growth into Aord-able Green Housing. Green building principles began in the 1970s as a resulto high energy prices, but the most recentmovement behind green building arosein the early 1990s ater renewed interestin energy eciency and in how buildingscan adversely afect the environment.6 The reasons behind the rapid growth o green housing and its positive impact onthe environment are well documented.7

Despite green housing’s rapid progress,legal rameworks or green housing havenot grown as quickly. A patchwork o lo-cal and state laws on green developmenthas risen across the country, with somemunicipalities, states, and regions lead-ing the charge more quickly than others.8

Local control o land use proves a chal-lenge or the widespread, uniorm greenbuilding laws, and many local land-useregulations actually stand in the way o green development.9 Overcoming thesechallenges, some states capitalize on the

new popularity o green building to enactgreen legislation and policies that work within existing rameworks to encouragegreen development.10

While the legal ramework or greenbuilding lags behind, the private sectorhas developed building standards. TheU.S. Green Building Council’s Leader-ship in Energy and Environmental De-sign (LEED) emerged as the most wide-spread standard or sustainable design.11 The LEED standards sometimes are the

basis or legislation and building law re-orm eforts.12 As green housing grows,however, the issues o housing equity andafordability need to be part o the legalramework as it develops.13

LEED originated in the luxury housing and commercial real estate market.14


5See, e.g., [WE ACT or Environmental Justice], Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change (n.d.), http://

bit.ly/cL4Isw (establishment o environmental justice principles or climate change responses).

6Charles J. Kibert, Green Buildings: An Overview of Progress, 19 Journal of lanD use anD environmental law 491, 497–98

(2004).

7Id. at 494–95 (benefcial eects o green building in terms o ethics, economics, and positive human health eects); Trip

Pollard, Building Greener Communities: Smarter Growth and Green Building, 27 virginia environmental law Journal 125,

126–28 (2009) (buildings are responsible or almost 40 percent or more o energy consumption and 36 percent to 43

percent o carbon dioxide emissions; or replacing millions o acres o orests, arms, and wetlands that flter water with

impervious suraces that allow increase in polluted runo; and or 100 million tons o construction and demolition debris

per year).

8Sara C. Bronin, The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States, 93 minnesota law

review 231, 249–60 (2008).

9Id. at 249.

10Id. at 270.

11Darren A. Prum, Green Buildings, High Performance Buildings, and Sustainable Construction: Does It Really Matter

What We Call Them?, 21 villanova environmental law Journal 1, 24 (2010); see also Peter Levavi, Beyond Green Roofs, 42

Clearinghouse review 86 (May–June 2008) (review o Global Green USA’s Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing (2007)).

12Meredith Laitner et al., Green Building City Survey , 11 new york university Journal of legislation anD PuBliC PoliCy 81 (2007)

(description o how several cities use Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards in green building

legislation).

13Aordable housing preservationists oten note that, “or every new aordable apartment created, two are lost due

to deterioration, abandonment or conversion to more expensive housing” (National Housing Trust, Aordable Housing

Preservation FAQs [Frequently Asked Questions] (n.d.), http://bit.ly/9P5zo2). The deterioration o aordable housing poses

serious challenges but also aords a unique opportunity or green rehabilitation (National Housing Trust, Preserving

Aordable Housing Is Green (2008), http://bit.ly/9ijCaF).

14See Bronin, supra note 8, at 242 (some commentators criticize LEED or placing too much emphasis on expensive

eatures and requiring costly and lengthy certifcation process).

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15See, e.g., Patricia M. Burke et al., Boston’s Green Affordable Housing Program: Challenges and Opportunities, 11 new

york university Journal of legislation anD PuBliC PoliCy 1, 5 (2007).

16Enterprise Community Partners, Green Communities Criteria 2008, at 2, 5 (2008), http://bit.ly/djSgj4. The Green

Communities Criteria are compatible with LEED (id. at 4).

17John Wargo, Environment and Human Health, The Green Building Debate—LEED Certifcation: Where Energy Efciency

Collides with Human Health 13 (2010), http://bit.ly/cH18Cp.

18william BraDshaw et al., new eCology inC. anD tellus institute, the Costs anD Benefits of green afforDaBle housing 10 (2005)

(net fnancial beneft or residents o aordable green houses ound in most cases); National Housing Trust, Preserving

Aordable Housing Is Green, supra note 13, at 2 (“[L]ower income amilies spend 20% o their budget on householdenergy costs.”).

19Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Siting Green Infrastructure: Legal and Policy Solutions to Al leviate Urban Poverty and Promote

Healthy Communities, 37 Boston College environmental affairs law review 41, 45–52 (2010).

20David E. Jacobs, Keynote Address, Housing and Health: Challenges and Opportunities, Proceedings o the Second WHO

[World Health Organization] International Housing and Health Symposium 35 (Sept. 29, 2004) (on fle with David E.

Jacobs).

21Stella Lowry, Housing, 303 British meDiCal Journal 838, 838 (1991); see also JaCoB a. riis, how the other half lives: stuDies

among the tenements of new york (1890), http://bit.ly/aPOvyr (chronicle o New York tenements and negative health eects

that conditions had on residents).

22Lilli Stein, A Study of Respiratory Tuberculosis in Relation to Housing Conditions in Edinburgh, 4 British Journal of soCial

meDiCine 143, 145 (1950), http://bit.ly/9zZxTC.

Advocates now are making the case thatgreen building principles can apply withequal orce to the afordable housing market.15 The Enterprise Foundation(now Enterprise Community Partners),in a partnership with the Natural Re-

sources Deense Council, ormulated theGreen Communities Criteria in 2004 tolead the charge to “make the transition toa greener uture or afordable housing”and to “promote smart growth, publichealth, energy conservation, operationalsavings and sustainable building practic-es in afordable housing design.”16 Im-portantly the Enterprise standards wereaccompanied by nancing and grantprograms to enable implementationin specic housing projects. Further-more, Enterprise actually requires cer-

tain health improvements, unlike LEED, where such requirements are optional.17

The economic benets o green housing are important or low-income residentsbecause energy costs can account or alarge expense out o an impoverishedamily’s limited income.18 Moreover, ona broader scale, green inrastructure inurban environments benets poor com-munities by improving water quality,reducing air pollution, achieving energyeciency, augmenting aesthetics and

saety, creating green jobs, and lowering ood costs.19 On top o the environmentaland economic benets to residents, ad-

vocates o afordable green housing cannow also claim documented health bene-ts (described below) among the reasonsto go green.

Case Study:

Minnesota’s Viking Terrace

The Green and Healthy AfordableHomes project at the Viking Terrace

Apartments in rural Worthington, Min-nesota, is one o the nation’s rst dem-onstrations o how rehabilitating low-income housing using green and healthyprinciples improves the health o resi-dents. Focusing on the social determi-nants o health—in particular, housing quality—can yield ar-reaching changesin both health outcomes and housing

delivery systems.20

The connection be-tween housing quality and health status was established more than a century ago when Florence Nightingale observedthat the connection between health anddwelling is one o the most important.21

At the time public health ocials helpeddevelop new laws to improve sanitation,

ventilation, and other housing condi-tions to help stem the spread o typhoid,cholera, and tuberculosis.22 More re-cently the treatment o residential lead-based paint hazards has led to a dramatic

decline in childhood lead poisoning,although twenty-our million housing units still have deteriorated lead paint


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23u.S. Centers or Disease Control and Prevention, Blood Lead Levels—United States, 1999–2002, 54 morBiDity anD

mortality weekly rePort, May 27, 2005, at 513 (most recent data available); Bruce P. Lanphear , The Conquest of Lead

Poisoning: A Pyrrhic Victory , 115 environmental health PersPeCtives (2007), http://bit.ly/9Aih6P; David E. Jacobs et al., The

Prevalence of Lead-Based Paint Hazards in U.S. Housing, 110 environmental health PersPeCtives A599 (2002), http://bit.ly/

dwdHsy.

24Enterprise Community Partners, supra note 16, at 40–51.

25LEED merely provides optional “points” or health-related standards (Wargo, supra note 17, at 13 (“Thus ... LEED

certifcation is possible, even at the highest ‘platinum’ level, without earning credits in the indoor air category, the category

most likely to protect human health.”)).

26Enterprise Community Partners, supra note 16, at 40–51.

27Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Green (Sustainable) Housing Standards (n.d.), http://bit.ly/c4BQjA; Minnesota Green

Communities & Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Minnesota Overlay to the Green Communities Criteria: Multiamily

and Single Family 2009–2010 Overlay or Use with Green Communities Criteria 2008 (n.d.), http://bit.ly/aKEmyr (explains

green communities’ standards that are required or developers requesting unding rom Minnesota Housing Finance

Agency).

28For more about this partnership, see Tony Proscio, Green Communities & Enterprise, Aordable Housing’s Green Future:

Building a Movement or Durable, Healthier and More Efcient Housing: Lessons rom Minnesota and Beyond (2007),

http://bit.ly/bylZnv.

and the contaminated dust and soil thatit generates.23

In the past ew years new standardshave been developed to bring greenand healthy principles into low-incomehousing rehabilitation. One o the lead-ing systems to do this is the aoremen-tioned Green Communities Criteria.These criteria cover eight areas o hous-ing and community improvement, in-cluding a section on Healthy Living Environment, namely, moisture man-agement, ventilation, contaminant con-trol, and use o healthier products andmaterials.24 These criteria were integrat-ed into a substantial renovation projectat a low-income housing developmentin Worthington, Minnesota. The main

health-related eatures o the green andhealthy renovation at the Viking Ter-race Apartments consisted o ventila-tion improvements, use o low volatileorganic compound building materials,radon testing and mitigation, integratedpest management, Energy Star bathroomand kitchen exhaust ans, and moisturemanagement measures. Although there

was good reason to believe that thesemeasures would improve health, theevidence to support the proposition wasscant. This project helped close that gap

by yielding data on health status ollow-ing renovation o low-income housing using green, healthy housing principles.

Choosing Green, Healthy Building Cri- teria. The rehabilitation o Viking Terraceused Enterprise’s Green CommunitiesCriteria. Despite LEED’s widespread rec-

ognition and popularity, LEED’s ailure tomake health improvements mandatory isa major shortcoming.25 The Green Com-munities Criteria actually require healthimprovements.26 In Minnesota housing proessionals at the Southwest Minne-

sota Housing Partnership, together withMinnesota Green Communities and theMinnesota Housing Fund, championedthe efort to integrate green principlesinto renovation o low-income housing.The Viking Terrace project helped lay thegroundwork or a guidance document re-quiring green healthy housing in all low-income housing construction and reno-

vation nanced by the Minnesota StateHousing Finance Agency.27

Forging Productive Partnerships. An-

other key to the development o aford-able green housing is bringing togetherproject partners. The Viking Terracerehabilitation project eatured a uniquecollaboration among the residents,the property managers, the owner, theSouthwest Minnesota Housing Partner-ship, Minnesota Green Communities, theGreater Minnesota Housing Fund, theCenter or Sustainable Building Researchat the University o Minnesota, and theNational Center or Healthy Housing.This distinctive partnership was made

possible by grants rom the Blue CrossBlue Shield Foundation o Minnesota, theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA), and Enterprise Community Part-ners.28 A combination o tax credits andstate, ederal, and local unding paid orthe housing rehabilitation.


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The National Center or Healthy Housing developed the health outcome evaluationand the resident training curriculum.The Southwest Minnesota Housing Part-nership oversaw the construction andserved as the liaison among the property

manager, residents, and researchers.The Center or Sustainable Building Re-search was responsible or environmen-tal sampling and building perormancetesting.

The methods or collecting data includedthe development o standardized proto-cols or sel-reported health and a visualassessment o the quality o building sys-tems. These protocols were drawn romthe National Health Interview Survey,

which the Centers or Disease Control

and Prevention developed, and the Pub-lic Housing Assessment System, whichthe U.S. Department o Housing andUrban Development developed. The useo validated data collection instrumentshelped ensure that the ndings wereo high quality. The National Center orHealthy Housing did the statistical anal-

ysis. All project partners reviewed thedata.

Engaging Residents. Successul greenhousing rehabilitation requires engaging residents. Viking Terrace residents re-ceived training that ocused on the sevenprinciples o healthy housing: keeping homes dry, clean, pest-ree, ventilated,sae, maintained, and ree o contami-nants. The training was conducted atthe beginning o the study and repeatedone year later ater the renovation wascompleted to help residents understandtheir role in maintaining a healthy home.The National Center or Healthy Housing held a winter celebration to introducethe study o the rehabilitation project to

the residents and to celebrate the resi-dents’ cultural diversity. The Viking Ter-race project received approval rom theUniversity o Minnesota’s InstitutionalReview Board; the board’s approval en-sured that the study was done in an ethi-cal manner respectul o the residents.Participation in the study was voluntary,and residents were compensated ortheir time spent in answering questions.

The National Center or Healthy Housing conducted health questionnaires and vi-sual assessments shortly ater residentsmoved into renovated units and repeatedthem twelve to eighteen months later.The project was tailored to the specic

needs o the residents—including over-coming language and cultural barriersas well as accommodating the residents’

work schedules.

Analyzing Health Outcomes and Build-ing Performance. Detailed analyticalmethods and ndings have been report-ed elsewhere.29 In brie, adults reportedbetter overall health and signicant im-provements in chronic bronchitis, hayever, sinusitis, asthma, and hyperten-sion. They also reported improvements

in their children’s overall health: chil-dren’s respiratory allergies, ear inec-tions, and eczema or other skin allergies.Postrenovation building perormancetesting indicated that resh air was be-ing brought into apartment units, thebuilding was no longer draty, and localexhaust ans perormed well.

Energy use was reduced by 45 percentover the one-year postrenovation period.More than 35 percent o adults reporteda change in overall health, 83 percent o

whom said that adult health improved,compared with 17 percent who said it was

worse. When rst interviewed, 19 per-cent o adults reported that their healthstatus was air or poor; this decreased to14 percent approximately one year later.Specic health problems also lessenedsignicantly, with a lower percentageo adults reporting chronic bronchitis,hay ever, sinusitis, asthma, and hyper-tension immediately ater renovations

were complete. Improvements in re-ports o chronic bronchitis and sinus-

itis remained signicant (or approachedstatistical signicance) at the end o theone-year ollow-up period.

O the 37 percent o adults reporting thatchildren’s overall health improved, 64percent said it was better versus 36 per-cent who said it was worse, but the smallsample size likely prevented this difer-ence rom being statistically signicant.

29David E. Jacobs, An Evaluation of the Health Outcomes of Green and Healthy Housing Rehabilitation, ProCeeDings of the

healthy BuilDings 2009 ConferenCe of the international soCiety of inDoor air Quality (2009).





30For more inormation on these studies, see National Center or Healthy Housing, Research (n.d.), www.nchh.org/

research.aspx.

31See, e.g., Stuart D. Kaplow, Does a Green Building Need a Green Lease?, 38 university of Baltimore law review 375

(2009) (requirements and considerations or green commercial lease); Prum, supra note 11, at 24 (discussion o diering

defnitions and standards or what qualifes as “green building”); Bronin, supra note 8 (varying state and local zoning laws

that aect green building).

Adults also reported decreases in spe-cic health problems or their children,

with a lower percentage o children hav-ing respiratory allergies, three or moreear inections, and a doctor diagnosis o eczema or other skin allergy ater reno-

vation. A majority o study participants reportedthat their newly renovated homes wereeasier to clean, more comortable, andsaer than their old homes, that theirneighborhood was saer, and that theirchildren played outside more oten.Fewer people reported that their newlyrenovated homes had a mildew odor ormusty smell or were damp due to bro-ken pipes, leaks, heavy rain, or ooding.

Ater renovation, a lower percentage o

residents reported a problem with cock-roaches, and the percentage reporting use o insecticides by either residentsor exterminators/maintenance person-nel decreased. The average annual levelo carbon dioxide (982 parts per mil-lion) was slightly less than the AmericanSociety o Heating, Rerigerating and

Air-Conditioning Engineers benchmark(1,000 parts per million), suggesting thatresh air ow was adequate over the long term. Postrenovation long-term averageradon levels posed negligible risk (0.7

pico Curies per liter), and none o thetested areas was above the EPA’s standard(4 pico Curies per liter).

Future Studies, Future Advocacy

As new promising public health studiesemerge, advocates o afordable greenhousing can now have more scienticcondence that using Enterprise’s GreenCommunities Criteria does in act im-prove health. The study reported here

was relatively small, consisting o about

sixty apartment units and eighteen ami-lies at the end o the one-year ollow-up period. That important health gainscould be detected in a small, relativelyhealthy population suggests that such

improvements in housing may yield evengreater and more varied health gains inlow-income minority populations. Otherlarger studies under way in Seattle, theDistrict o Columbia, Chicago, and Bos-ton hold promise or urther improv-

ing our understanding o green healthyhousing.30

These studies’ promising initial resultsshould encourage the nation to investin afordable green housing as an en-

vironmentally riendly, healthy, andeconomically advantageous policy thatcould decrease health costs. As buildingsare made less draty to conserve energy,adequate resh-air ventilation must beprovided to avoid poor indoor environ-mental quality that sometimes resulted

rom the early energy conservation e-orts in the 1970s. The Viking Terracestudy demonstrates that, with adequateplanning and mandatory health-basedstandards, implementing energy con-servation is possible without sacricing good health and good ventilation.

Advocates need to be aware that the new-ly emerging ocus on afordable greenhousing can help alleviate long-standing and interrelated housing, health, andenvironmental injustices. Advocates

working with tenants and communityorganizations need to learn the newlydeveloping legal requirements and re-sources available or afordable greenhousing.31 Specically advocates can

work with state and local housing nanceagencies to bring green and healthyhousing requirements into low-incomehousing tax credit programs and otherhousing improvement programs.

Attorneys are oten well situated to orgepartnerships among national greenhousing organizations, community de-

velopment corporations, governmentalhousing entities, nonprot housing de-

velopers, and resident or tenant associa-tions to encourage and advocate growth


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in the afordable green housing arena.Furthermore, attorneys can seek nontra-ditional partners, such as public healthproessionals and institutions, to work

with residents to learn about green hous-ing and their health beore, during, and

ater a green rehabilitation o a building. Advocates who live in areas where lawsdiscourage development o afordablegreen housing can drat new regulationsand statutes. Transactional legal aid at-torneys are well positioned to cut some o the costs associated with real estate de-

velopment. Green, healthy homes mustno longer be out o reach or low-incomeindividuals, and advocates can help makethat a reality.

Authors’ Note and AcknowledgmentsThe views in this article are solely ours. Wewould like to thank the following for their assistance in conducting the public healthand housing study: the residents of Viking

Terrace; Jorge Lopez, construction manager, Southwest Minnesota Housing partnership;William Weber, professor, Center for Sus-tainable Building Research, University of Minnesota; Sherry Dixon, statistician, Na-tional Center for Healthy Housing; and Car-ol Kawecki and Susan Aceti, data collectors, National Center for Healthy Housing.




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bringing green, healthy housing to low income populations

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