icon Blueprint for February

What’s in your tool box?

By
3 min read

During the past couple of years, we have reported frequently in these pages on the evolution of the relationship between housing and healthcare. As a result of both the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and the rise in awareness of the Aging in Place movement, more and more property managers have been discussing, if not yet providing, health services within their living facilities.

As we go to press with this issue, both houses of Congress have laid the groundwork to, in their words, “repeal” the ACA. Whether the intent is really to repeal it or just to rename it to blot the legacy of President Obama, we don’t know and may never know. Until we receive further notice (tweet, tweet), we choose to depend on the testimony of the nominee for HUD Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, who acknowledged at his confirmation hearing, “There is a strong connection between housing and health. Housing and housing discrimination is a social determinant of health,” and so we expect this marriage of body and shelter to continue.

Thus far, we have primarily reported on a variety of finished programs, such as Enterprise’s Oregon Health Initiative and the work of The Schuett Companies in Minnesota. But I thought it might be helpful to take a step back this month and look at housing and healthcare from the perspective of management that has not yet implemented it. This national effort has affected a good deal of change in many areas, even in the language used to discuss health. So please consider this issue your toolbox for construction of your own healthcare program.

You will find a good deal of practical information here, including a guide to healthcare organizations that are providing services to residences; a report on how state Housing Finance Agencies are evaluating healthcare in the tax credit award process; an explanation of the past and future of Telehealth; and, so you can talk the talk with even the keenest of healthcare experts, a glossary of new healthcare terms.

Your toolbox also contains conversations with innovators whose work is setting the table for future entries into the housing/healthcare market:

  • Josefina Carbonell, of Independent Living Systems and a former Assistant Secretary for Aging at the Department of Health and Human Services, works with housing owners and award-winning technology to help manage chronic conditions of your residents (Talking Heads);
  • Tracy Doran of the Humanities Foundation in South Carolina has utilized a unique background in both nursing and building to design health services for her company’s residents (More Than Housing); and
  • CareOregon is a collaborative of six healthcare companies that are helping to fund construction of more new affordable housing in their region (Healthcare Builds Housing).

In these pages, you will also find more reactions to Dr. Carson’s hearing and the opportunities that may be offered by a doctor leading housing from our columnists Thom Amdur and David. A. Smith.

Despite arguments to the contrary in the heat of the campaign, there is a lot of evidence that this particular marriage is off to a promising start. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

Marty Bell
Editor