Share:
Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | July 19, 2021 03:42 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Jay Costa |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Resolution to Study the Impact of Housing and Health Quality |
| In the near future, I will be reintroducing a resolution asking the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) to conduct a study on the impact of housing on health quality. The relationship between housing and health has been documented in many forums as a contributing factor to negative health outcomes for the homeless and those living in substandard housing. The physical condition, stability, and affordability of housing, as well as the availability of support services correlated to housing, all contribute to the overall health of households and decrease demand for health and social services. Stable and affordable housing also decreases costs of public supports and maximizes individuals’ quality of life by providing a means to live independently. The way that limitations on evictions and utility disconnection moratoria have affected infection and deaths rates of COVID-19 has also recently been documented in a working paper written by Duke University researchers and released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. In the report, data shows that when policies are in place to limit evictions, COVID-19 infections are reduced by 3.8% and deaths are reduced by 11%. Utility disconnection moratoria policies also show a reduction of COVID-19 infections by 4.4% and mortality rates by 7.4%. In addition, had federal policies limiting evictions and utility disconnections been in place between early March 2020 and the end of November 2020, estimates conclude that that COVID-19 infections and deaths could have been reduced by 14.2% and 40.7%, and 8.7% and 14.8%, respectively. Another recent study published in Nature Communications conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that in a city of one million in which one percent of households experience eviction monthly, up to 49,000 excess COVID-19 infections could occur. Even if we remove the lens of the current pandemic, Pennsylvania has the second highest number of housing units built prior to 1950 in the United States. Our aging housing stock continues to exacerbate health issues by exposing residents, including children and the elderly, to lead contamination, poor ventilation, ill-constructed waste systems, and other unsafe and toxic conditions inherent from older construction methods. Housing that includes appropriately integrated supportive services have a major effect on improved health and quality of life. As Pennsylvania has embraced a humanistic approach to deinstitutionalization, more community living environments have emerged. However, these community living environments require appropriate supportive housing. In addition, the rising homeless population also requires appropriate housing and health solutions to break cycles of economic dislocation that lead to housing vulnerability. There are significant opportunities to provide housing with integrated health care solutions that are now being pioneered across the Commonwealth. The LBFC study will examine health care costs associated with substandard housing and how much public and private funds can be saved by addressing the problem. It will also examine how housing and health connections and financing can be integrated to produce appropriate affordable housing that is linked to both the local health care and social service systems with the objective of improving life situations and reducing health and social service costs. The LBFC will reach out to stakeholders, departments, organizations, and appropriate agencies to gain insight and provide recommendations regarding effective solutions to address housing and its impact on the health of our citizenry. Please join me in co-sponsoring this study. Previous co-sponsors include Senators Haywood, Street, Hughes, Brewster, Schwank, Tartaglione and Yudichak. |
Introduced as SR159