Healthy Children Voucher Demonstration
BRHP’s Healthy Children Voucher Demonstration was developed from the belief that a health-focused housing voucher program is not only critical for Baltimore, but feasible.
The purpose of the Healthy Children Voucher Demonstration is to enhance the health of families through health-focused housing mobility. The program, a partnership between BRHP, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, Johns Hopkins University and health care providers, will serve up to 150 Baltimore City families with children and help them to make moves to better quality housing to improve their health outcomes. In 2019, BRHP was awarded a planning grant from The Kresge Foundation as a part of its Advancing Health Equity Through Housing Initiative that sought to identify community-driven practices that connect the housing and health sectors, and recognize multisector partnerships that preserve, protect and increase the supply of stable housing and improve the health and well-being of people and families in low-income communities across the country.
Health and Housing
Baltimore City’s rate of asthma-related hospitalizations is almost three times higher than the U.S. average and about 2.2 times higher than the average rate for Maryland. Living in a high-poverty neighborhood is a key predictor of asthma symptoms. Poor housing and neighborhood environments have also been linked with preterm births, infant mortality, biological changes that predispose children to a range of lifelong physical, emotional and mental health issues, impaired school performance, and depressed earnings as adults.
