Unpacking Expertise: Engaging Diverse Stakeholders to Promote Health in Housing Redevelopment

Public housing residents tend to have high rates of serious chronic health problems. Faced with relocation during housing redevelopment, residents’ health may worsen faced with stress and loss of social support networks. A one-year planning project funded by the Kresge Foundation concentrated on two strategies for improving health during housing redevelopment. First, we collaborated with the Urban Institute to identify best practices for services to ensure that local decision-makers would have access to evidence-based information. Second, we established a Redevelopment Public Health Team (RPHT) that engaged local service providers and stakeholders poised to affect local policies and services.

The Center on Society and Health convened the RPHT and facilitated discussions and planning steps. The RPHT identified and prioritized local health needs, reviewed evidence-based practices, and developed recommendations for coordinated services. To widen ensure community residents’ perspectives were represented, the team collaborated with the Informed Neighbors Corps, a group of community leaders from the public housing development.

The teams drew on local expertise and data to assess community strengths and opportunities and prioritize needs.  We will present on the engagement process, evidence-based practices selected, and the recommended adaptations and lessons learned. These recommendations were presented to the housing authority, the developer, diverse providers, and city leaders and have been used to inform programmatic priorities.

Collaboration between diverse stakeholders provided an effective approach to addressing resident priorities and building community linkages. These strategies comprised an engagement model that values collaboration and the expertise of all stakeholders to promote responsible relocation.