“Our home is where we launch our lives from on a daily basis. Therefore, housing is an important area of study and intervention as it carries vital health and social implications.”
Diana Hernandez, Mailman School of Public Health
This episode of Social Epi Radio brings songs about housing, neighborhood gentrification and homelessness. Access to affordable housing and neighborhood amenities and resources are key social determinants of health. Yet neighborhood gentrification brings up difficult issues, often pitting improvements in the quality of life in low income neighborhoods against the concern that families and even entire communities that call that neighborhood home will be displaced. These issues are addressed in Lance Freeman’s excellent book ‘There Goes the ‘Hood’: Gentrification in New York City. Alternatively, affordable housing can be built in higher income neighborhoods, avoiding the concentration of poverty in specific areas. Recent analyses by Trulia found that the building of low income housing in the country’s 20 least-affordable housing markets had little to no impact on the values of the neighboring homes.
