The National Building Museum hosted a conference last Thursday on “How Housing Matters”. The conference explored the links between stable, secure and affordable housing and educational outcomes, children’s health, and older adults’ ability to age in place. Not surprisingly, demonstration programs and research have found that children’s health and educational outcomes improve when the children’s families are living in secure, affordable housing. Likewise, most older adults would prefer to age in place, and there is a lot of academic research and demonstration programs to pinpoint the elements that best enable older adults to stay in their homes as long as possible. There are a number of reports, papers, and case studies from the conference available here.
“How Housing Matters” is a project of the MacArthur Foundation. The intent is research how stable, quality housing has value beyond the provision of shelter. There is a website at the MacArthur Foundation that includes links to stories in the news and research on the impact of affordable housing on family and community outcomes. These stories and research can help owners, developers, and funders of affordable housing better tell the story of how important having an adequate supply of affordable housing is to the long-term well-being of our communities.