Healthy Affordable Housing Committee

Working with local community organizations, the Healthy Affordable Housing Committee works on:

• making sure all affordable housing construction is healthy and green,
• ensuring all affordable housing rental units are healthy, and
• working to guarantee that healthy and green housing stays AFFORDABLE.

Healthy Affordable Housing Construction.  The Committee has prepared best practice recommendations for Developers and Contractor that focuses on minimizing asthma triggers and causes. The key asthma triggers are dust, pests, and mold.  The principles of the guidance are: 1) keep the house dry; 2) make the home easy to clean; 3) ensure good ventilation; 4) make the house combustion by-product free; 5) eliminate pest problems; 6) make the home toxic chemical free; and 7) keep the home comfortable. 

This guidance is based on the work of the Asthma Regional Council (www.asthmaregionalcouncil.org) and has been reviewed by experts in the field.  It is updated annually to ensure that the most recent building science is included in the guidance.   The guidelines are used by BUAC and its community partners in negotiating with developers who are building residential units in Boston.

    Recent Successes:

• The Department of Neighborhood and Development (DND) for the City of Boston adopted BUAC's healthy home guidance for their design specifications and outline specifications. 
• In the summer of 2006, BUAC received multi-year funding to coordinate  healthy and green housing education and advocacy with 9 community-based organizations.
• As of 2006, we have succeeded in advocating for 800 new affordable housing units to be built using the BUAC healthy housing guidelines.
• Submitted changes to the state Building Code (currently under review) that would prevent moisture problems.

Healthy Affordable Rental Units.   The Committee advocates for changes to the Sanitary Code to reflect healthy building and maintenance standards and monitors efforts at the City of Boston's Inspectional Services Department (ISD) to ensure better enforcement of the State Sanitary Code. As part of our work with ISD, we participate in the Breathe Easy Program.  This program works with health care providers and community-based organizations to identify families with children who have asthma and live in unsanitary rental housing.  The providers make referrals to ISD.  Inspectors at ISD have been trained to identify asthma triggers and write detailed violation notices.  The goal of the project is to improve the health of children by eliminating asthma triggers in the home.  For more information, visit the Breathe Easy website.

Ensuring Healthy Housing Stays Affordable.  BUAC works with affordable housing advocates helping them advocate for healthy and affordable housing. Through these efforts, the Healthy Affordable Housing Committee works to ensure that all affordable housing is healthy and healthy housing remains affordable. 

BUAC Documents

BUAC Healthy Homes Guidelines 2005 (PDF)
Flooring Q&A (PDF)
Why Building Healthy is Important (PDF)
Your Rights to a Healthy Home (PDF)

Boston Urban Asthma Coalition
622 Washington Street
Dorchester, MA 02124
(617) 423-4337
fax (617) 282-3950
jzotter@tmfnet.org

Healthy Affordable Housing