Newsletter (September 2020)
Newsletter (September 2021)
jkld
In This Issue
.
Honing in on Housing
Housing Instability as Eviction Protections End
Medical-Legal Partnerships: One Tool to Address Housing
Medicaid in the Mix
Looking Forward: Shaping Housing Policies
Resources !!!
.
.
.
Honing in on Housing
.
In this quarterly newsletter, we are focusing on housing. As a membership organization, MHHA identifies emerging health challenges and brings together key stakeholders to make Denver a healthy place to live for everyone. Housing is not only essential to physical, oral, and mental health, but also to the many factors that support health: transportation, food, school, employment, child care.
Housing factors like affordability, quality, and location impact both access to health care and the nature of health outcomes, as this report from Health Affairs shows. In Denver, we can see this relationship clearly through the strong connection between neighborhood and life expectancy.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Denver already faced a shortage of affordable housing and an eviction “epidemic.” The past 18 months have only exacerbated these issues and revealed the existing cracks in our systems and housing policies. These policies disproportionately affect Black and Latinx renters. According to Colorado Newsline, approximately 45% of white renters in Colorado are cost-burdened (meaning that their rent payments eat up over 30% of their income). In comparison, 56% of Black renters and 59% of Latinx renters are cost-burdened.
Going forward, solutions to Denver’s housing issues must address the historic and the current impact of systemic racism and structural economic inequities on BIPOC.
.
Housing Instability as Eviction Protections End
.
.
After a summer of uncertainty and a last-minute extension, August 26th marked the end of the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control, which has plunged many renters back into uncertainty even as the current economic crisis continues. The ban prevented evictions for nonpayment of rent to help stop the spread of COVID-19 by allowing people to stay in their homes. Denver was among the five counties that made up over 70% of evictions filed in Colorado this year despite the ban.
In response, Governor Jared Polis is allowing those who have applied for assistance 30 days (rather than 10 days) to pay back rent. The Denver Department of Housing Stability (HOST) has contracted with several nonprofits in order to get assistance out as quickly as possible. Still, their success depends on renters being aware of the program and seeking assistance early in the eviction process. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey estimates how many Coloradans are currently at risk of eviction or foreclosure. This dashboard from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs provides a visual representation of the total payments and denials as a part of the various pandemic relief assistance programs.
Medical-Legal Partnerships: One Tool to Address Housing
.
.
Since 2017, MHHA has been collaborating with community partners to establish and support a pilot MLP in the Denver area. Our work with Denver Health, Colorado Legal Services, and the Colorado Poverty Law Project, among others, has aimed to connect individuals receiving medical care to legal services in order to better meet their social needs. This article from NPR highlights the work of an MLP at Salud Family Health Centers and the impact of such programs. Among other benefits, MLPs have been shown to reduce ED usage among high-use patients by connecting them to needed resources and representation.
Last week, MHHA wrapped up its participation in the Safe and Healthy Housing Cohort convened by the Network for Public Health Law and the National Center for
Medical-Legal Partnership. Through this cohort, MHHA has benefitted from technical assistance and learned from the strategies and experiences of other Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) across the nation.
MHHA also recently received a grant from Rose Community Foundation in support of our continued work on MLPs. MHHA will bring together cross-sector partners to research and develop language for codifying MLPs in Denver. Similar efforts in Georgia and New York have lent legitimacy to MLPs by creating a process for certification. Our goal through this work is to increase awareness of Medical-Legal Partnerships as a method of reducing health inequities and encourage future investment in these programs.
Medicaid in the Mix
.
The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) is also developing strategies to address housing. Recently, $530 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was approved to strengthen Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), including housing for people with serious mental illnesses experiencing homelessness. Colorado was also selected by the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) to be part of a cohort of Medicaid programs and housing agencies across the country addressing health and housing. Read about the previous cohort’s work on increasing interagency collaboration here.
.
Looking Forward: Shaping Housing Policies
.
.
As we work to shape an equitable recovery to the pandemic, Shelterforce has put forward policy suggestions in this article, including:
- Decreasing displacement by protecting renters from eviction for unpaid back rent if they are able to currently pay their rent.
- Establishing preventative programs that provide renters with support even before the eviction proceedings begin.
- Expunging evictions related to the pandemic, rather than having the eviction stay on a record 7 years.
This fact sheet from the Network for Public Health Law explains how eviction records can follow renters, barring them from future housing and job opportunities and further contributing to financial instability. Currently, while Colorado’s HB20-1009 suppresses court records of eviction proceedings, the records still become available to the public if the landlord wins.
Looking to the future, the Housing Development Blueprint from the Common Sense Institute suggests principles and practical steps that, if implemented, would help increase the supply of affordable housing in Colorado. Additionally, continued investments should be made in solutions like those enacted through the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond. This feature from the Urban Institute summarizes the effectiveness of this kind of housing in Denver.
Resources !!!
.
- Upcoming Board Meeting: Tuesday, October 19th from 3:00-5:00pm
- MHHA’s updated Renters’ Rights and Resources document is now available in English and Spanish
- Visit mAb Colorado’swebsite for more information on the COVID-19 treatment
.