Sonoma County Asthma Coalition Spotlight
(To view other spotlights visit http://www.calasthma.org/about_cafa/monthly_spotlight/)
The Sonoma County Asthma Coalition is currently at a pivotal stage of development in the progress toward promoting clean indoor air programs and policies in affordable rental housing. While we keep our vision focused on promoting healthy indoor air quality in multi-unit low-income rental housing developments, we have cast our net widely to include diverse potential partners and their goals in our efforts toward realizing this vision. We see our task as maintaining focus on our objectives while weaving into and supporting other environmental health campaigns in Sonoma County.
Our indoor air quality policy objective is focused on institutionalizing the reduction of asthma triggers in affordable rental housing in Sonoma County. We chose this objective based on our work in CAFA I, in which we advocated for the passage of a county resolution prioritizing education to property owners and tenants around measures that improve indoor air quality. Now we turn our attention toward identifying how best to manifest the changes set forth in that resolution. We are currently exploring two paths: 1) advocate for adoption of green building practices that improve indoor air quality in new low-income rental housing projects, and 2) advocate for landlord-enforced policies that decrease triggers in already existing low income housing (i.e. smoke-free housing).
In pursuit of the first path, we met with the largest low-income rental housing developer in Sonoma County, Burbank Housing Development Corporation, and have begun to learn about the complex nature of public housing that is operated by a non-profit organization. In our conversation with Burbank about the organization’s use of green building practices as a way to address indoor air quality issues, they said that they are not currently implementing green building practices but are open to it. Asthma Coalition staff responded by finding local experts at Sonoma State University’s Environmental Technology Center and the Redwood Empire Branch of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to learn more about green building resources in our area.
Preliminary outcomes of these connections have been fruitful. The green building experts are presenting a training on “Green Building and Healthy Indoor Air Quality” at our next Coalition training on March 9th. In addition to coalition members, we have invited a broad spectrum of stakeholders representing low income housing, city and council officials, and city and county offices of housing and community development.
Following the training, we will be meeting with Burbank and green building experts to further the discussion of introducing green building practices in Burbank’s new construction. While both organizations have concerns about indoor air quality, it is the issue of asthma that has brought them together at this juncture. These outreach efforts are a fine example of the power of coalition building to predicated on the strengths and resources within our own community.
On the second track toward the same objective, we are exploring a partnership with an existing local project whose mission is to reduce tobacco use in the local Latino community. The project director is a member of the coalition, and is identifying potential Latino leaders in Sonoma County who will promote tobacco use prevention through culturally appropriate practices within the community. By combining our resources, the Asthma Coalition and the tobacco project may be able to work with identified community leaders to expand the scope of the community education and awareness campaign to include concerns about asthma, clean air, and tenants’ rights. This connection is another demonstration of using best practices in coalition building, based on strengthening the community through recognition, acknowledgment and support of the expertise and resources that already exist within it. We believe this partnership can be of great value to all involved in our ongoing efforts to improve community health and to use resources wisely.
At this crossroads in our coalition development, we remind ourselves that we are demonstrating best practices even as we weigh the pros and cons of pursuing one direction or another. Our strength lies in our flexibility and ability to identify and coalesce creative energy in the community to work together to address issues that include the asthma coalition’s specific objectives but arch beyond these to include much larger community health issues. We see one of our current lessons as trusting in this process and keeping our plans flexible enough to intersect with other environmental and public health campaigns. In doing so, the Asthma Coalition increasingly plays an integral part in a community wide advocacy effort to improve public health.
Shan Magnuson,
Asthma Project Director
and
Barbara Young
Associate Project Director |
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