Organizations seeking to undertake healthy homes advocacy
and/or organizing projects must make several decisions about how to proceed. What
policy solutions they propose or demand should depend on the age and condition
of the housing stock, who owns the high-risk housing, what laws exist and how
well they are enforced, the local political climate, barriers to participation
for people affected by the problem and a multitude of other issues. How they design
their organizing/advocacy strategy should depend on who might be allies, what
relevant skills and capacities community members have, the level of community
awareness about health impacts of local housing and more.
How can healthy homes advocates decide what policy objectives
to seek, what hazards to address and what homes to assess? How can advocates
best prepare themselves to develop an organizing and advocacy strategy? To make
informed choices about these matters, community organizations seeking change
often conduct a needs assessment and an assets inventory.
Community needs assessment is a general social science
process of systematic analysis of the needs of a community. Needs assessment
identifies gaps – discrepancies between what should be and what are current
conditions – and arranges them in priority order for resolution. The most
important deficiencies usually are selected to be addressed first.
Community assets inventory and mapping is a more specific
process that has been developed and promulgated by John Kretzmann and John McKnight
at Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research.
It was developed partly to compensate for needs assessment’s focus on
community needs (deficiencies) to the detriment of considering the assets (strengths
and resources) of communities. An assets-based approach recognizes that knowledge
about the skills of local residents; the power of local associations; the resources
of public, private and non-profit institutions; and the physical and economic
resources present in a community are vital to any effort to make and carry out
a plan for change. (“Mapping” simply refers to a system to geographically
organize the information from an assets inventory.)
A needs assessment might include research about the extent
and severity of lead poisoning and asthma in the community, collection of existing
data about concentrations of substandard housing and poverty, and interviews
with officials about deficiencies in the housing code and the code enforcement
system. An assets inventory might include a brainstorming session with some
community leaders about what skills (carpentry, painting, science) exist among
community members, research about potential collaborators (schools and child
care facilities, social service agencies, health clinics, etc.), and an inventory
of existing funding resources that might be able to be tapped for making needed
repairs to homes. The results of both of these assessments combined should help
any organization decide what hazards to address, what housing to investigate
first and what policy goals are realistic and meaningful for their community.
Many books and articles have been written about needs
and assets assessment in community change. An excellent practical summary of
these topics can be found at the University of Kansas’ Community Toolbox
web site in Chapter 3 of their Community Building Tools, entitled “Assessing
Community Needs and Resources." For additional information
about asset-based community development, please visit the Asset-Based
Community Development Institute's website.
