Rebuilding Together Twin Cities believes that everyone deserves to live independently in a safe and healthy home, which is why safe and healthy housing is the foundation, framework and focus of all our programs and projects. Current research makes clear that our homes can negatively impact our health and put occupants at high risk for fires, falls, moisture and mold, asthma and allergies, toxic exposures such as carbon monoxide, and various other hazards. Many interventions have been proven effective in reducing and preventing these risks and, in many cases, the repairs are relatively simple and cost very little. However, low-income homeowners often do not have the resources needed to address these hazards in their homes.
The Rebuilding Together affiliate network has embraced safe and healthy housing as our strategic focus, and we are working to incorporate the National Center for Healthy Housing’s Seven Principles of Healthy Homes into practice. Keep the home:
- Dry
- Clean
- Ventilated
- Pest-free
- Safe
- Contaminant-free
- Maintained
Together with the National Center for Healthy Housing, our network has identified 25 Safe and Healthy Home Priorities that can be used to identify safety and health-related issues at each home before the project and to measure the health and safety improvements resulting from our work. Ensuring that low-income homeowners in our community have a safe and healthy home has long been a focus of our work; however, by incorporating these Principles and Priorities founded in scientific research, we hope to further our impact on the safety and health of individual homeowners and neighborhoods in need and more accurately measure and evaluate that impact.
