Healthy Homes, Communities, & Climate
Mission and Values
Since 1980, EHW has helped the public and policy-makers in Cuyahoga County address critical health concerns related to our urban environment. We create, assess, demonstrate and advocate for programs that reduce human exposure to harmful substances, promote health and sustain the natural environment. Our program staff of eight has long tenure, technical expertise, authentic links to the community, effective relationships with numerous partner organizations, and deep commitment to improving environmental health in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
EHW’s mission is to offer information, assistance and advocacy to help people protect themselves from significant environmental threats and to influence corporate, government and personal actions that promote human health and environmental sustainability. EHW’s organizational values – environmental sustainability, protection of human health, environmental justice, health equity and precautionary action — are the foundation for these programmatic efforts. A key strategy is collaboration with other organizations to develop and test practical and effective model programs that can be adopted and sustained by the partners.
Environmental Health Problems Addressed
- Substandard housing imperils health and increases health disparities, particularly affecting children and the elderly, who are most at risk. Housing hazards include lead paint, asthma/COPD triggers, pesticides, and combustion byproducts. In 2009, 20% of Cleveland children tested had worrisome blood-lead levels. By high school, 1 in 4 children have been diagnosed with asthma.
- Energy use in housing accounts for about one-quarter of CO2 emissions in Northeast Ohio. Locally, the health consequences of global warming, such as increased ozone air pollution and more extremely hot days, have a disproportionate impact in urban core communities.
- Residential electrical energy use contributes to local air pollution, such as particulates and mercury, from fossil-fueled generating plants, increasing the disease burden on communities (e.g., asthma and COPD). Federal regulations to reduce air pollution are under attack.
- Rising utility costs (gas, electricity, water, and sewer) jeopardize housing affordability for low-income families and contribute to foreclosure and abandonment. Greening existing housing lowers those costs.
- “Environmental injustice” refers to the disproportionate burden of adverse environmental impacts experienced by urban core communities and the simultaneous lack of influence over the public and corporate decisions that result in those burdens.
Major Programs
Our programs cover two interrelated areas, with overarching focus on environmental justice and greenhouse gas reduction:
1) Green & Healthy Housing: We work with homeowners, tenants, landlords, housing professionals and public officials: ▪ to increase the affordability of housing by lowering utility costs and improving durability; ▪ to make homes safer and healthier by reducing hazards and improving indoor air quality; and ▪ to reduce greenhouse gases and other adverse environmental health impacts of housing.
2) Community Environmental Health encompasses neighborhood organizing for environmental justice and health equity to address key issues including local air pollution and urban agriculture.
