Expectations for supporting good health in rental housing has come a long way since HUD came up with their eight basic features of a healthy home. They are homes that are dry, clean, safe, well-ventilated, pest-free, contaminant free, well-maintained and thermally controlled.

To be fair, those eight are certainly the most important and difficult to achieve. And most qualified developers and building managers have these covered, at least 90% of the time. So if you have HUD’s healthy homes basics covered, what’s next?

After the Basics.

There are several pathways to lead you to the next big thing in healthy housing. See a March 2018 post on Peter Rummel’s The District Jacksonville here. Enterprise’s Green Communities, WELL, Fitwel, and several other groups have developed guidelines and scoring systems to help housing professionals continue to make progress towards a sometimes elusive goal. There seems to be movement towards consolidation and increasing commonalities among these certification entities.

As a Fitwel Ambassador, I am most familiar with the Fitwel guidelines process. Fitwel has fifty-five data points in its multifamily residential program. These fall into twelve categories, ranging from Location and Outdoor Spaces to Vending Machines and Emergency Preparedness. Even if you are not interested in trying to achieve Fitwel certification, it is a useful exercise to perform a self-assessment to see how your multifamily residential building might score. Then, as you are able, prioritize areas where you can have the most impact on residential health.

The big step in moving from HUD’s basics, is that you’re moving from the realm of exposures and contaminants to behaviors and choices. But are the choices real?

Much of our built environment is rigged against us. If we TRIED to set up a system to make Americans fat and UNhealthy, I’m not sure we could do better than our current way of life. Is it a CHOICE to eat poorly when the cheapest food is junk food and there’s no full service grocery store in the neighborhood? In general, our environment promotes UNhealthy eating and discourages exercise.

But let’s get to it. What are my top five easiest strategies for making good health in rental housing the easy choice?

#1 Take the Stairs.

In a building with an elevator, make your stairs the star of the show. You shouldn’t need a map and compass to find the stairwell. Get signs, lighting, a can of paint. Heck, make the stairs fun, bright, and attractive. Get a local art class to paint a mural, or let the residents do it!

And once you jazz up the stairs a little, put a sign out by the elevator that says “Are you sure you don’t want to take the stairs today?” with an arrow pointing the way to the stairwell.

Make it fun; change it up. On another day, post a sign that says, “Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler did NOT take the elevator!”

This is called point of decision messaging and studies show that it works. More people will take the stairs if the staircase is visible, inviting, and they are nudged. (Be aware that there’s a fine line between nudging and shaming.)

Of course, if you’re designing a new building rather than working with an existing one, the stairs should be front and center and the elevator should sit in the background.

Making the stairs inviting is using the design concept of unintentional exercise, which basically means tricking people into getting exercise that they had no intention of getting! Look for other ways to build in unintentional exercise into daily life. And all those people with fitbits or Apple watches or their phone counting their steps will thank you.

#3 Make Some Space.

Somewhere in the building, find some exercise space. Even if you don’t have any room, look again and find it.

Ideally, the room will be dedicated solely to exercise and appropriately equipped. If that’s not possible, use a multi-purpose room and focus more on programming than equipment. Partner with a fitness professional or let a resident lead or just coordinate an online or DVD program.

There really is no excuse for not having some sort of onsite or participation in a broader community movement program.

#4 Fill Your Bottle.

Create a couple of bottle refilling stations onsite. This can be some sort of water cooler or drinking fountain with a high spigot.

This may seem trivial, but there are a couple of reasons it made the top five easy strategies. First, it creates a certain vibe. People have a water bottle because they’re working out, exercising, going for a long walk. Psychologically, you are sending the message that athletes, or at least exercisers, live here.

Second, you are discouraging the use of single use plastic water bottles, which is an existential health threat in its own right!

Third, this gives you the opportunity to brand yourself and market this whole health vibe you are now projecting. Picture you logo and tagline on a great looking water bottle and residents sporting them around town. You’re sending a couple of strong messages that you are both a health and environmentally aware company.

#4 Overlay Programs.

Against this backdrop of a building that supports good health in rental housing, you need to overlay strong health promotion programming. This starts with a thoughtful targeting of services based on resident input that brings healthy living to life.

I already mentioned programming around exercise. And that’s a huge opportunity. But that’s only the beginning.

Think in very broad categories; or ask the residents to think in very broad categories:

+ How can you get access to fresh and healthy foods if there’s no neighborhood grocery store? Gardening projects? Farm to table programs? CSA delivery? Onsite markets?

+ What are barriers to health care? Transportation? Child care?

+ How can we enhance education and literacy? After school and summer learning? Adult ed? English as a second language programs?

Housing professionals can help health care systems identify people in need of services. Health care systems can reconfigure their offerings to meet the needs of residents with your help. These might include mobile or onsite clinics, remote access through video conferencing, and other high tech or high touch approaches.

A series of partnerships can generate fitness classes, walking groups, wellness seminars, gardening, walking school buses, inter-generational pals… the possibilities are endless. Together, partners can build a solid menu of activities to help residents choose good health on their own terms.

#5 Plant a Tree. Or a Forest.

Increase access to and views of nature. The healing power of nature is a real thing. Skull caps with electrodes can measure brain activity and show that exposure to nature profoundly changes how we function.

A few examples… After participating in gardening projects, prison inmates had measurably reduced hostility. In low income housing, comparing green properties with ample trees vs. barren properties with no trees, the treed sites won every test, including better performance on test scores, mental fatigue, and attention span.

Nature attracts people to be outdoors. We are biophilic – hard-wired to like and be happier surrounded by nature. (Check this out for an explanation of biophilic design.) It reduces stress levels, encourages us to talk with neighbors, and develops a stronger social bond.

This healing power of nature works on three levels: direct access to nature, views of nature, and bringing the natural world indoors.

If you have access to green space, trail systems, water features, etc., use it! Map it, market it, make it easy to use.

Look at your viewshed from windows in common spaces and from windows in the dwelling spaces. You may not own all of it, but can you improve that part that you do own?

And inside, how can you bring natural plants into your space? In dark halls, even natural landscape artwork and photography can do wonders.

BONUS STRATEGY: Ditch the Roundup.

There are better approaches to weed control. These include native and complimentary plantings, horticultural vinegar, and other nontoxic solutions.

Besides the real health risks related to exposure, you don not want to be on the wrong side of history when a resident or employee questions why they have been exposed for all these years by living or working on the property.

Do yourself a favor and just stop.

Small Changes. Big Impact.

So there you have it, my top five (or six) easiest strategies for making good health the easy choice for residents. None of them are earth shattering.

But small changes can have a big impact. Ask yourself which has a greater impact on health in rental housing: a clinic for low income kids with asthma? Or the housing professional that replaces carpet with no VOC flooring and eliminates the asthma triggers altogether?

Health supporting buildings play a key role in decreasing the burden of chronic disease in our communities. As developers and property managers, YOU rig the environment in the residents’ favor, making good health in rental housing a real choice.