Good News! Housing for Health projects are starting up again.

Housing for Health projects in New South Wales and the Northern Territory have been given the green light to recommence.

In March this year, all HfH projects were halted as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. Projects are now ready to start again with strict COVID regulations in place to protect local communities.  Projects will ONLY proceed where there is community agreement to do so, where there is local community input into the COVID safety aspects of the projects and there are no members on the teams which have been to hotspots in the previous 14 days.  We will monitor the local COVID situation weekly for each project and will pull the pin if deemed to be risky.

The vast majority of Healthabitats work is called Housing for Health (HfH). This is an evidenced based methodology founded on the Healthy Living Practices (HLPs) aimed at improving health through the living environment. HfH is a survey and fix process putting at the center the person and their health, then connects them to the parts of their living environment needed to stay healthy.

The HLP’s and HfH programs connect people to the parts of the living environment that keep you healthy. In this image (HLP1) you can see that in order to have a wash a person must be able to connect with a water source, water storage, water heater, working hot and cold taps, a place to wash, a place to store soap, clean clothes and a towel and somewhere for waste water to go after washing.

HfH involves surveying and testing a standard list of around 250 essential safety and health items for every house and surrounding yard area and immediately starts fixing urgent fix work identified in survey. This information is available at Housing for Health; The Guide a national guide to improving health through the living environment.