GHHI Selects Service Providers for Pay for Success Projects
I am delighted to announce—during the celebration of Asthma Awareness Month—that the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) has selected the following service providers to participate in our national, asthma-related Pay for Success (PFS) feasibility study:
- Heart of the City Neighborhoods, Inc. (HOCN) and Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB), Buffalo, New York
- Health Net of West Michigan (Health Net), Asthma Network of West Michigan (Asthma Network) and Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan (Healthy Homes Coalition), Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis (Memphis Habitat), Memphis, Tennessee
- Salt Lake County Office of Regional Development, Salt Lake County, Utah
- Partners for a Healthier Communities’ Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition (PVAC), Springfield, Massachusetts
Each awardee was selected from a pool of highly competitive candidate organizations, for their ability to execute housing based interventions with excellence and adhere to rigorous data collection processes. These organizations will work in collaboration with local health care organizations in their cities to conduct feasibility studies of PFS models that fund home-based asthma interventions, including remediation of asthma triggers and resident education.
We are grateful to the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), which—through the Social Innovation Fund—is providing GHHI and our partner Calvert Foundation with the grant funding to explore this project.
In the coming weeks and months, GHHI and Calvert Foundation will provide technical assistance to the ten selected service providers and healthcare organizations to assess viability of asthma-related PFS projects benefitting low-income children who suffer from the disease.
If these projects are deemed viable and successfully implemented, a significant number of children suffering from asthma as a result of poor quality housing will no longer require frequent hospitalization. Affected children will spend more time in the classroom, and their parents will spend more time at work. Asthma-related healthcare costs will be lower for healthcare organizations and for the families they serve.
Why It’s Important
We are forging a new path to improved asthma care and reduced healthcare costs, at local and national levels. PFS presents an ideal opportunity for transformational impact in the care and treatment of asthma. Research shows that 40 percent of asthma episodes are caused by home-based environmental health hazards. Much of this cost is born by medical and federal tax payer dollars, yet these programs provide little to no resources to eradicate the root causes of asthma. We have opportunity to use housing as a platform to reduce the high cost associated with repeated hospitalization and emergency department visits due to asthma.
This project will also enable GHHI and Calvert Foundation to establish the evidence necessary to move public policy and garner public support for similar, future projects across the country.
We are excited to get started and I look forward to sharing what we learn. I hope you will check back regularly or sign up for email updates on this groundbreaking project!