Our President and CEO Priscilla Almodovar and Solutions President Jacqueline Waggoner recently hosted a virtual event titled ”Innovative Partnerships for Affordable Housing: Working Together to Respond, Stabilize and Recover."

We know that where someone lives impacts every aspect of their — from health, to employment, to the ability to make ends meet and, hopefully, move themselves and their families up the economic ladder. This is acutely true among Native Americans, whose housing opportunities have been systemically limited.

More than half of the renters surveyed (54 percent) said they have delayed medical care specifically because they couldn’t afford it. The survey found the need for affordable homes that are healthy and connected to opportunity especially critical for survey severely cost-burdened survey respondents, who spend more than 50 percent of their monthly income on rent.

What’s new in the 2020 Enterprise Green Communities criteria is an explicit path to zero energy with a path of action: reducing energy use, considering renewables and electrification and moving to zero energy.

This is the first in a blog series exploring five themes critical to affordable housing development and central to the 2020 Enterprise Green Communities Criteria: integrative design, path to zero energy, healthy housing, water and resilience.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of access to health care – and demonstrated why every sector that influences social determinants of health must join the fight to eliminate health disparities.