Housing and healthy Native Communities
Housing insecurity is widely considered a risk factor for a range of threats to health and wellbeing. Frequent, involuntary moves or evictions have been linked with increased exposure to trauma, negative health outcomes, and intimate partner violence, among other challenges to family and community wellness. Housing insecurity also tends to occur hand-in-hand with food insecurity and a lack of access to transportation, education, and essential community services and programs.
On the other hand, housing security is associated with improved wellbeing for Native children, families, and communities. Secure housing provides a conduit to strengthened cultural and social relationships, better health, increased safety, opportunities for asset building, and neighborhood stability. The resources identified here make these linkages, and suggest that tribal leaders, planners, and key organizational staff can improve outcomes for Native children and families by taking strategic account of the fact that housing offers more than shelter. As a caveat, some data and examples are drawn from non-Indigenous settings, and findings might not be wholly applicable to Indian Country; even so, the ideas may spur thinking or sharpen a Native nation’s housing goals.
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Compared to other families, low-income families are more likely to experience the disruption of a residential move. Moves can occur for a variety of reasons, but when they are involuntary, unplanned, and/or frequent, they can have detrimental effects on children’s educational achievement, physical and mental health, and exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). These findings underscore the importance of housing assistance and counseling programs that help low-income families maintain affordable, high-quality housing in safe and supportive neighborhoods or communities.
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Housing insecurity and health risk behaviors and outcomes go hand-in-hand. In this study, respondents experiencing housing insecurity were about twice as likely as those who were not to report lower health status or delayed doctor visits because of costs. These findings not only reaffirm housing security as a social determinant of health but also suggest that legal, economic, and social-service systems that generate greater housing security can improve citizen health.
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The harms associated with intimate partner violence are substantial, and extend beyond physical and mental health consequences to include a woman’s ability to obtain and maintain housing. In this study of the experiences of non-Indigenous women in California, victims of intimate partner violence reported difficulties making housing payments (rent or mortgage payments), moved frequently in an effort to find affordable housing, and experienced periods of time when they were without their own housing, either living with friends or relatives or enduring homelessness. In Native communities, the lack of victims’ shelter options may further exacerbate housing stress.
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The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the connections between scarce and substandard housing in Indian Country and poor health outcomes. In a setting in which overcrowding already was common, social distancing was impossible, disease transmission was rampant, and the consequences were deadly. Health outcomes were further imperiled by substandard housing that lacked appropriate ventilation and access to clean water. Federal investments in Indian housing such as the Indian Housing Block Grant have been underfunded for years, but new and increased funding is not the only need. Local successes with sustainable architecture and leveraging funds for mortgage finance need to be replicated across Indian Country. An investment in housing is an investment in a community’s future health and resilience.
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Trauma-informed community development is a framework that promotes resiliency and healing so that community members are able to access opportunities and realize their potential. This article explores the idea of expanding the trauma-informed community development approach to include not only programs and services but also the built environment, which encompasses structures such as housing, farm and commercial buildings as well as roads, traffic, lighting, noise, and greenspace. The idea of a “trauma-informed neighborhood” is based on the understanding that physical aspects of a neighborhood may either trigger trauma or promote healing. It calls for research using geospatial, population health, and community-engaged approaches to better understand how the built environment impacts mental health. Evidence would have direct implications for public policy and community planning, particularly in locales (like Indian reservations) where community members bear a disproportionate trauma burden. Such thinking raises the importance of Native nations’ investments in walkable access to services and programs, as well as in museums, cultural centers, nature walks, conservation, public art, and more.
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Restoring communal living through Pueblo-style housing, the Tsigo bugeh Village offers “traditional living with a modern touch” for Ohkay Owingeh citizens. Designed to honor a sense of community and place, Tsigo bugeh addresses Ohkay Owingeh’s urgent housing demands with 40 units for single and multigenerational families, all in a modern design that echoes millennia of traditional Pueblo living.