Multnomah County Health Department, Portland, Oregon

Project Description

The Multnomah County Health Department, Portland, Oregon, project, titled the Multnomah County Healthy Homes Capacity-Building Project, seeks to improve the housing service delivery system to reduce environmental health risk factors that contribute to disease and health disparities related to substandard low-income housing and the surrounding built environment.

This project is designed to increase communication and information sharing between the health and housing sectors and bring healthy homes concepts into housing policy dialogue through the formation of a community-based healthy homes partnership.

The Healthy Homes Partnership and grant staff are working collaboratively to

Build capacity and partnerships with community groups and organizations that result in new initiatives supporting healthy rental housing.
Develop, implement, and evaluate culturally competent educational tools and create a pilot program that supports landlord/tenant behavior change. The latter, titled the Healthy Affordable Housing pilot project, is a community-based project to educate and empower landlords, property managers, and tenants about environmental health issues, concerns, and hazards in a multifamily affordable housing dwelling with the goal of creating more habitable and safe housing, improving community livability, and helping community members gain more control over their health as it relates to where they live.
Educate and support policy makers in developing health and housing policies and programs that support healthy housing.

Accomplishments

In year 1, we convened a healthy home partnership that is

prioritizing and implementing the recommendations of a Multnomah County-sponsored 2007 Healthy Homes Summit;
increasing communication and information sharing between the health and housing sectors;
building strong, sustainable partnerships between health and housing systems; and
reducing health disparities that are linked to environmental health issues in a home.

Additional year 1 accomplishments:

Provided training and technical assistance to local community agencies that support the development of health and housing programs and initiatives.
Developed a landlord/tenant resource guidebook that will educate both landlords and tenants about environmental health topics that will promote healthy homes. The handbook will be disseminated in year 2.
Created the framework for a joint landlord-tenant training and education program that will be implemented in year 2.
Participated in policy activities and work groups that support the development of healthy home policies. A positive outcome as a result of our efforts was the implementation of two asthma briefings with the Oregon State House and Senate Healthcare Subcommittees. As a result of our education to policy makers, we are developing a policy bill for the 2009 Legislative session.
Collected and analyzed existing and/or new data to support policy initiatives.

Barriers

As always, a project summary does not include the immense work involved in creating and maintaining community partnerships and community-centered programs. Everything has a few bumps, takes a little longer than you expected, and is always rougher around the edges than you would like it to be. However, having said that, to date, we have not experienced any significant barriers that have impeded implementation of our project.

What Is Next

Over the next 2 years, we will continue to further our efforts to

Build capacity and partnerships with community groups and organizations that result in new initiatives supporting healthy rental housing.
Develop, implement, and evaluate culturally competent educational tools and a pilot program that supports landlord/tenant behavior change.
Educate and support policy makers in developing health and housing policies and programs that support healthy housing.

Our long-term goals are to work with local and state policy makers to

develop an environmental health housing inspection model that will identify and enforce environmental health issues that cause health problems and substandard housing conditions and
develop and implement an Asthma Managed Care pilot project with Care Oregon that will lead to the permanent institution and replication of a reimbursable asthma case management model.

Links and Products

As we educate our community about environmental health, advocate for the intersection of health and housing concepts, and strive for the development of healthy home policies at the state and local level, we will make grant products available to other jurisdictions for replication on the Multnomah County Environmental Health Web site (www.mchealthinspect.org). A Healthy Home section of our Web site is in development and should be completed by the end of October 2008. Some of the products that will be available on the Web site in the future include

Healthy Home Partnership Toolkit
Joint Landlord and Tenant Training Pilot Program Implementation Manual
Landlord/Tenant Resource Guidebook
Multnomah County State of Health and Housing Report
Peer-reviewed articles and environmental health conference presentations.

For more information about our grant and future grant products, please contact:

Mark Fulop
Program Manager
Multnomah County Environmental Health Services
3653 SE 34th Ave.
Portland, OR 97202
503-988-3400 x 22551
mark.p.fulop@co.multnomah.or.us.

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