Here’s to Healthy Housing

Executive Director Marcie Summers is at the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit this week in Washington DC. It’s sponsored by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, an American organization whose mission is to “Advance creation and growth of housing for people living with HIV….” It’s fantastic that there can be a whole organization focussing on housing and that they share the wealth of their knowledge. Activists from all over the continent are in DC to talk about social determinants of health, of which housing security is a huge one. Having a safe, assured, affordable place to live is such an important part of health, as the folks at the National AIDS Housing Coalition will attest. Canadian voices from the Positive Spaces Healthy Places research project will chime in.

The Positive Spaces Healthy Places project research looked at housing security and HIV disease. Not surprisingly, they found that housing status related to health outcomes. PWN is hoping to do similar research here in BC so we can have the hard data to support advocacy for improved housing options for PWAs. PWN currently offers housing subsidies for a few members, but we would desperately like to be able to offer more. (If you want to help raise money for housing subsidies, join the PWN team at the AIDS Walk on September 20. Contact team captain Donna for information).

We realize that part of accomplishing more will be taking on housing at a higher level, pushing it into the spotlight as a significant factor in health outcomes (and saving the government in health care spending. Sometimes it has to be that blatant). So Marcie is in DC, soaking up the program:  ethical research techniques, policy development, discussions of housing stability and HIV risk, and housing stability and HIV progression. Hopefully it will ultimately lead to putting a roof over more people’s heads. 

-  Janet

This was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Education & Resources, Networking, Special Events . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.

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