There’s a
new group in town—the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI). No,
it’s not yet another well-intentioned citizen starting a non-profit to change
the world. In fact, GHHI is almost the opposite.
Simply put,
the goal of GHHI is to ensure that “all families and children live in homes
that are healthy, safe, energy-efficient and sustainable.” That may seem like a
lot of work, and it is. Take it from us; tackling even one of those issues is
hard enough!
You might
notice that many organizations are already
working on improving homes. The difficulty addressed by GHHI is that each we
often don’t communicate with each other to fix all the problems in a house. One
program may go in to handle the lead paint, but the leaking roof, drafty
windows and pest problems are, to use the cliché, not in the scope of their
work. Maybe they don’t have the equipment, training, or time.
GHHI
in Buffalo
In 2010, a
national level group of partners launched fourteen GHHI pilot programs
throughout the United States. A few months later, due to a combination of great
need and available community resources, Buffalo was added as the fifteenth and
final pilot program. A similar initiative already underway at the CommunityFoundation for Greater Buffalo became the GHHI. The Buffalo branch of
GHHI now has over 50 health, housing, and energy efficiency providers working
together.
For programs
working with GHHI, we will no longer just go into a house, fix the problem we
came for, and leave other issues untouched. When a work crew finds unhealthy or
unsustainable conditions in a home that they aren’t able to fix, we refer the
home to GHHI, which then gets the appropriate organization into the home. It is
a joint effort to connect a variety of existing agencies: weatherization, home
repair, lead abatement, etc. NHS of South Buffalo is currently committed to referring and assessing at least 40 homes.
Currently,
the biggest obstacle to coordination is the magnitude of paperwork each agency
deals with. As one step towards an ideal one-step process, GHHI has been
looking for similarities among the required forms. By finding ways to share
necessary information with as few additional questions as possible we reduce
paperwork for staff and, most importantly, for families who need our services.
As the
Buffalo pilot program works out a system for this coordination, it serves as a
think tank/guinea pig for future efforts throughout New York. The lack of
an outside authority controlling the structure provides a lot of opportunity
to develop and tweak this program fit the strengths—and weaknesses—of existing
programs in the area.
