Our family [unofficially] started Health Through Housing as an initial support for our family member with three children who was purpertually housing insecure due to financial challenges, emotional struggles and societal paradigms. We pooled our resources and purchased a moble home only to have our family member continue to experience hurdle after hurdle with inconsistent government programs, being buried in forms and, yes, personal challenges to overcome – but at least we were able to keep them housed so we could ensure they could be reached with resources, services, and food for them.
As a family we realized, while we were doing what we could, we needed to find a way to do better and create a more formalized strategy…Then, the Pandemic arrive, and we saw so many of our neighbors and friends being especially impacted with food insecurity, pandemic related health issues being ecsaserbated and unable to reach resources – the commonality of this for many of our community members? Housing Insecurity.
Health Through Housing is a community effort to address housing insecurity started in northern-Indiana and expanded into central Maine and Southwestern Michigan as we realized, from a health provider perspective: it is nearly impossible to provide resources to our community members if we cannot house our community members. More specifically, it just might be easier to keep a person or family housed, than to find and re-house a community member.
And so, from the brain-trust and perspective of healthcare providers who recognize that health starts at home and providing health services, food security and community is a near impossible uphill battle if our neighbors are housing insecure due to inflation, housing costs and other economic pressures came Health Through Housing!