Healthy Green Housing

Everyone needs healthy green housing, particularly residents of distressed neighborhoods with substandard homes. Healthy green housing results in:

• Healthy indoor environments
  • Reduced toxins, lead hazards, asthma triggers, and excess moisture
  • Unhealthy homes are a cause of health disparities
• Increased housing affordability
  • Reduced gas, electric, water and sewer utility costs
  • Lower utility bills reduce risk of evictions and foreclosures
• Reduced environmental impacts
  • Reduced emissions contributing to climate change.
  • Housing contributes 21% US carbon dioxide emissions nationally (27% locally)
  • Reduced local air pollution
  • Cleaner water, waste reduction, and natural resource preservation
• Stabilization of neighborhoods and communities
  • Rehabilitating distressed housing helps stabilize imperiled neighborhoods.
  • When brought to scale, making houses healthy, green and affordable creates jobs

Putting neighborhoods on the path to healthy, green, affordable housing

General Green and Healthy Housing Topics

• 7 Simple Fixes to Improve the Air in Your Home
• Greening Your Home Slideshow
• Greening Your Home Presentations by Jim LaRue:
  • Green site and foundation (pdf)
  • Greening exterior walls and surfaces (pdf)
  • Green daylighting and roofs (pdf)
  • Greening your heating and cooling (pdf)
  • Greening the interior of your home (pdf)
  • Green power and water use (pdf)
  • Maintaining a green home (pdf)
  • Find Local Green Products and Companies
• Green Building Products within 500 Miles
• Local Green Housing Examples
• US Green Building Council Green Renovation Guide
• EPA Green Home Guide: Tools to Cut Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Homes
• Cutting Edge Green Building Information
• Northeast Ohio Chapter of the US Green Building Council
• National Association of Homebuilders Green Home Initiative
• Enterprise Green Communities
• HUD Healthy Homes Program Guidance Manual

Climate Change Impacts Indoor Environment

Environmental Health Sciences 9/1/2011 – For many years investigators have been aware of potential links between climate change and outdoor air quality.¹ Far fewer studies have focused on climate change and indoor air quality, but a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concludes that the relationship between the two warrants further attention and action.² “There’s not much research at this interface, and hard evidence is needed,” says John Spengler, an atmospheric scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, who chaired the committee that authored the report. “This report identifies indoor air quality as a priority that deserves an important place in climate change research and policy.” Click here to read the entire article.