Creating Healthy Housing to Alleviate Childhood Asthma

The Social Innovation Fund’s (SIF) Pay for Success (PFS) initiative has the potential to change the way government serves the public. It’s a new approach to funding social outcomes and addressing some of the country’s most pressing challenges across the SIF’s three priority areas: economic opportunity, youth development and healthy futures. As an inaugural grantee of the SIF’s PFS program, it allows GHHI to continue to lead the national effort in increasing the stock of affordable, healthy housing by exploring the feasibility of asthma-related Pay for Success projects benefitting low-income, asthmatic children.

Today we’re excited to announce our Pay for Success service recipients who will advance and evaluate new models of funding home-based interventions that produce measurable outcomes such as reduced hospitalizations, reduced emergency department visits and less missed school days.

In 2014, GHHI received $1.011M from SIF, a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to help address childhood asthma by finding effective interventions and mobilizing public and private resources. So why did we engage in Pay for Success?

It’s innovative. Instead of paying for permitted activities, private healthcare payors pay for demonstrated results. This gives organizations the chance to bring proven interventions to scale.

It’s evidence-based. Investors are repaid once a rigorous, third-party evaluation determines that the program has achieved outcomes agreed upon by all parties.

It’s cost-effective. Preventative services are often the first to be cut from government budgets, even though remedial and emergency services are more expensive in the long run. By directing funds to preventive services, Pay for Success transactions have the potential to generate long-term savings for taxpayers.

It’s collaborative. By establishing public-private partnerships, Pay for Success transactions mobilize new sources of capital and minimize the financial risk to taxpayers. Social interventions benefit from additional funding, and “impact investors” and other private and philanthropic organizations can marry financial goals and public good.

I invite you to learn more about our service recipients, and the work we are doing together to break the link between unhealthy housing and unhealthy children. With a healthy home free of asthma triggers, the opportunities for families can only increase—children are in the classroom ready to learn and parents are able to work.