Good housing policy is good health policy

There’s nothing worse than getting off to a bad start.

I’ll use sleep as an example. If I don’t get a restful night’s sleep, the next morning I’m off to a bad start. Making it through the day seems like swimming upstream against a strong current. I’m at a disadvantage when it comes to focus, concentration and mood.

This kind of disadvantage doesn’t end when the day is over for many of the very youngest children experiencing housing insecurity, according to a current study published in the American Journal of Public Health. What the researchers found was that housing insecurity is associated with poor health, abnormal weight for age, and developmental risk in the very young. The cards are stacked against these children before they even start school.

Housing insecurity covers a lot of territory but for the purposes of this study, researchers at Children’s HealthWatch looked at only two features: overcrowding and multiple moves. Between 1998 and 2007, they gathered information from over 22,000 low-income caregivers with children younger than three who were seen in the urgent care clinics or emergency rooms at seven urban medical centers around the United States. In this sample, nearly half of the people interviewed had experienced housing insecurity within the preceding year.

Our very young invisible underclass

Poor health and developmental outcomes have been associated with children experiencing homelessness. Now we have ample evidence of an at-risk population that could easily slip through the cracks of our healthcare and education systems. These are the children who are living one or two notches above outright homelessness. They aren’t living in a car or a campground. They aren’t couch surfing. But they’re living on the edge.

So now what?

Policy and legislation

Clearly, we all must do what we can to influence policymakers. Convince them that the monetary cost of increasing housing subsidies is far less than allowing housing insecurity to continue and, perhaps, grow. The societal cost of the status quo suggested by this ChildWatch study is even more reason to increase and, at the bare minimum, preserve, current subsidized and affordable housing options. See the Oregon Housing Alliance website for their current legislative agenda.

Child health

As for those children already at risk or soon to be at risk, our vigilance will be called upon to identify families who would benefit from Oregon’s and Washington’s  preventative health care and child development services. One such service is through Healthy Start, a family support, child screening, and parent education home visiting program for first-birth families. Families who are struggling financially learn about age-appropriate developmental landmarks, good child nutrition choices, and resources, such as free health care. Many families who participate in Healthy Start are eligible for home visits with a trained parent coach. The coach helps mothers and fathers expand their parenting skills which will nurture their child’s physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

Last year, Healthy Start in Oregon provided information and referral services to almost 10,000 families and intensive home visiting for almost 3,000 of the most vulnerable families. This is only one of many programs that helps our youngest children get off on the right foot, despite the risks that their parents face.

We also know that families experiencing housing insecurity are at higher risk for experiencing food insecurity. WIC, or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, can give qualifying families and pregnant women a nutritional boost by paying for essential items like milk, eggs and baby formula. They also provide breastfeeding support. Services are available for mothers with children up to age five.

As always, we love feedback on our opinion posts. Let us know what you think about how to solve the subsidized housing shortage and how to protect those children who may be negatively affected.