With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and technical assistance and expertise from the Center for Community Investment, the National Council of State Housing Agencies has made awards to six state housing finance agencies as part of its Healthy Housing, Healthy Communities (H3C) Partnerships initiative. The awards to Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington state will be used to Identify and solidify commitments from health institution partners to collaborate with the HFA to build or preserve affordable housing and to produce a Housing, Health, and Equity Partnership Plan that specifies financial and other commitments the agency and its partners will make to develop or preserve affordable housing in a manner that improves community health and advances social and racial equity.

The six state housing finance agencies are:

• The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA), which will use funds to build collaborative partnerships with housing, healthcare, philanthropic, and community organizations to design solutions and leverage cross-sector resources, allowing CHFA to create and preserve more homes and improve health outcomes for Colorado residents, furthering its mission. Grant funding will support CHFA’s efforts to connect its work in healthy housing to its long-running commitment to financial and management innovation.
• The Illinois Housing Development Authority, which will use grant funding to leverage existing healthcare sector resources, such as hospitals, managed care organizations, or federal and community health centers, with the agency’s housing financing programs, with an initial focus in Cook County and Peoria. The agency has earmarked $15 million in state funds to jump start projects that result from the planning.
• The Nebraska Investment Finance Authority, which will deepen collaboration with health and community organizations serving the city of Lincoln, including Bryan Health System, the Community Health Endowment of Lincoln, Community Development Resources, and the Lincoln’s Cause Collective network. Grant funds will support development of a prototype program to integrate refugee families into the community.
• The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which will partner with UPMC, the state’s largest healthcare institution, to develop a replicable health and housing financing model. Building on earlier work, the program will be piloted with grant support at community-based, locally supported projects in historically underserved neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, with the ultimate goal of serving the entire Commonwealth.
• In Rhode Island, RIHousing, which will utilize grant funds to develop a health, housing, and equity plan of action to increase affordable, service–enriched housing for Rhode Island’s most vulnerable residents. The agency will build on the work five of the state’s Health Equity Zones have initiated and will partner with LISC Rhode Island to leverage their $4 million grant from Blue Cross & Blue Shield Rhode Island.
• The Washington State Housing Finance Commission, which will enhance its statewide effort to align housing and healthcare resources toward addressing homelessness and housing stability, drawing on the momentum and new collaboration created by Apple Health and Homes. Grant support will enable the agency to build from the success of “one-off” projects to establish a statewide structure of sustained, cross-sector leadership and investment.

State HFAs administer the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program and typically also administer national Housing Trust Fund allocations, as well as state shares of Community Development Block Grant and HOME resources and other housing development and preservation resources.

Read more about the NCSHA initiative here.