Housing is a basic human need. Housing includes houses, apartments, and congregate housing like nursing homes or halfway houses. Transportation connects us to the places where we live, work, learn and play. Transportation systems can include buses, subways, trains as well as sidewalks, streets, bike paths, highways and air travel.
Employment is the condition of having paid work, which provides income and often benefits such as health insurance and paid sick leave. Employment, and the income and benefits it provides, shape our choices about housing, child care, medical care and more. Wealth, or the accumulation of assets, makes it easier for people to manage job changes, emergencies, education costs and retirement. As employment, income and wealth increase or decrease for individuals, families and communities, so do opportunities for health.
Institutional practices are the ways in which an institution’s members carry out their functions and responsibilities, often through established patterns of behavior and procedures. They can include decision-making processes and resource allocation established by historical precedent, communication protocols, performance evaluations and hiring and promotion practices.
