Fifty years after the Fair Housing Act passed, let’s talk about the connection between housing and health

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act into law. The vision: For every community to be a place where people can live in strong, diverse neighborhoods with access to affordable homes, healthy food, good jobs, quality schools, green space, and other elements that help create health and wellbeing for all.

Despite some progress, segregation from opportunity and unequal access to quality, affordable housing persist today, and we need to do much more to ensure that every community is afforded equitable access to opportunity and a healthy way of life. Just as it was 50 years ago, it’s clear that if you want to talk health, you have to talk housing.

That’s what’s happening in Buffalo, New York, where the organization PUSH Buffalo has led efforts to increase community ownership of land, build affordable housing, and create green jobs. Watch this video to see how PUSH Buffalo is improving health by taking on housing.

As we continue to make the vision of the Fair Housing Act a reality, community-led organizations like PUSH Buffalo show the way forward. We hope you’ll watch the video, created with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and share it with your networks. 

To learn more about how housing–and other sectors, like education and economic development–have contributed to inequities in health but also have important roles in achieving health equity, read our new brief, Countering the Production of Health Inequities: Ensuring the Opportunity for Health for All, also supported by RWJF.