Community Development

How is community development related to health?

The community development sector focuses its efforts on low- and moderate-income communities. Many of the root causes of poverty and poor health are the same.

Neighborhood conditions – factors like housing, community safety, quality education, employment opportunities, and access to healthy foods – play a critical role in the health of a community. By improving well-being in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, community development affects the root causes of poor health.

Working together, community development and health leaders can have a greater impact on low-income neighborhoods and the lives of people living in them.

What can community development professionals do to build healthy communities?

Community development leaders are, by the very nature of what they do, working to build healthy communities.

While the sector includes professionals from multiple fields, some of the key players in this world are:

• Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) -- Private financial institutions dedicated to delivering responsible, affordable lending to help people experiencing low-income, low-wealth, and other disadvantages join the economic mainstream.
• Community Development Corporations (CDCs) -- Neighborhood-level, nonprofit organizations that implement community development projects ranging from the development of affordable housing and community centers to job training and health services.
• Affordable housing developers, specifically those that address social determinants of health.

Invest. Investing in low- and moderate-income communities is core to the mission of most who work in community development. Changemakers in the sector invest in communities by developing and financing:

• Affordable housing
• Businesses
• Community centers
• Health clinics
• Job-training programs
• Services to support children and families
• Charter schools

Community development leaders also leverage many types of capital including:

• Grantmaker program-related investments
• Health care community benefit dollars
• Bank Community Reinvestment Act funds

Advocate for policy. Community development professionals are also key decision makers for policies and programs that impact communities in myriad ways. Leaders in the field are working on a variety of approaches related to housing, transportation, building social capital within communities, and creating opportunities for active living and healthy eating.

By addressing root causes of poverty, community development efforts also address the root causes of poor health.

Build and maintain the community. Investments in low-income neighborhoods don’t come without risk of displacement.  As a neighborhood gentrifies, community development and community leaders need to work to ensure that all voices are at the table to minimize displacement -- both physical and emotional -- which can impact longtime residents.²

• Physical displacement: Longtime residents can no longer afford to live in their community.
• Emotional displacement: Longtime residents remain, but the fabric of the community has changed. Costs are higher and they have fewer services to meet their needs.

Changemakers have a role to play in making these changes equitable. Strategies that can help communities find the right mix of investment without too much change:

• Community building.
• Advocating for policies that protect longtime residents. Things like rent control, compensation for displacement, right to return, relocation benefits, or caps on condo conversions can help.
• Advocating for policies that ensure affordable housing.
• Requiring health impact assessments (HIAs).¹

HIAs identify the potential effects of a proposed policy, project, or program. They offer practical options for maximizing health benefits while minimizing health risks. 

Measure your impact. MeasureUp, from the Build Healthy Places Network, is a collection of tools that can help you assess health impact in community development efforts.

Play community quarterback. Community development organizations often play the role of “community quarterback” -- bringing people together from multiple sectors to address community issues such as public safety or academic achievement. More and more connections are being made between community development and traditional health partners like health care organizations and public health agencies.

How can you connect with community development?

Do your research

First, find out who leads community development in your local community. These groups often operate at a sub-county level. Here are a couple helpful places to start:

• Build Healthy Places Network’s Partner Finder offers a collection of directories to help you find the community development and health organizations nearest to you.
• Local city and county planning staff.

What kind of work are they currently doing? Once you’ve identified organizations involved in community development, start with their website. Look for their priorities and information about existing partnerships. 

Look for common ground and common language. As communities work to address root causes, the common ground between community development and health has become more apparent. Issues like housing, community safety, quality education, employment opportunities, and access to healthy foods are ripe for collaboration.

Here are some resources that can help:

• Build Healthy Places Network aims to catalyze and support collaboration across the health and community development sectors. Check out their site for curated resources and examples of what works to help partner across sectors.
• The Jargon Buster tool, from Build Healthy Places Network, can help community development and health partners speak the same language.

Get connected

Now that you’ve got some context, look for a way to connect with a person. Ideally, you’ve identified one or more key changemakers in the organization. This could be the agency director or the person who heads community outreach.

If you have a mutual partner, ask for a warm introduction. If not, introduce yourself. Community development leaders are often eager to connect with other changemakers who are focused on improving low- and moderate-income communities. As with anyone, it’s helpful to start by asking about their efforts and priorities.

What’s in it for them?

Mission. Investing in communities is core to the mission of most who work in community development. Connecting with other changemakers can help to build their network and support the work they already do.  

​Data. Public health and health care partners often have data that can help drive decisions about where efforts will have the greatest impact.

Citations

1. Build Healthy Places Network. Jargon Buster. www.buildhealthyplaces.org/jargon-buster/. Accessed September 25, 2017.
2. Ray B. Whose City Is it? The Promise and Peril of Gentrification. Crosswalk Magazine. https://medium.com/bhpn-crosswalk/whose-city-is-it-the-promise-and-peril-of-gentrification-df798dd63735. Published 2016. Accessed September 26, 2017.