Building Healthy Communities

I’m just back in the office from a two-day meeting the Foundation hosted with about 60 representatives from federal agencies and the leading sustainability organizations from across the country.  We were discussing how to implement two federal programs: the tri-party Sustainable Communities Initiative of HUD, DOT and EPA and the Recover through Retrofit program being led by the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality.  (CEQ is an administration office that I didn’t know about until our good friend Michelle Moore joined them from the USGBC.  Check them out when you have a minute and you’ll be proud of where these tax dollars are going.)

The goals of the programs  can be described fairly simply:  align the resources available through programs administered by HUD, DOT and EPA to create safe, livable, healthy communities; and help middle class Americans reduce their energy costs by improving their homes and expand job opportunities by training people to do the work.  At first blush, the programs themselves may even sound pretty straight forward.  But if you’ve ever dealt with any issues related to affordable housing, transportation, the environment or  health you know better though.

With all of these exceptionally smart and knowledgeable people in the room, we worked to address several questions that get to the heart of these programs.  I can’t discuss them all, but here are the kinds of things we discussed:

How do you define housing affordability?

Most people know the rule of thumb that you aren’t supposed to spend more than about 30% of your income on your rent or mortgage.  But how do you factor in the cost of getting to and from all the places you need to be?  For a working family, housing typically takes 30% and transportation takes 28% or their income - and if they fell victim to the “drive til you qualify” syndrome, transportation costs can exceed those for their home.  Think about that - if almost 60% of your paycheck is gone before you’ve cooked one meal, taken one shower or bought one jacket for your growing child, there’s not much “disposable income” left.  Putting aside monthly bills for energy and water, how should we calculate maintenance costs -was the house built with durable materials or are things going to need fixing sooner rather than later?   Even more complicated, we know that if you live in a well ventilated house that was build using non-toxic materials (no- or low-VOC paints and adhesives, for example), you’ll be healthier.   How do we factor in the reduction in asthma attacks, fewer trips to the emergency room and fewer days missed at school and work?  Then, if you are talking about retrofitting an existing home, it gets even more complicated in terms of getting a true cost/benefit analysis of the proposed work and an accurate idea of the payback period.

How can we quantify and establish the benefits of sustainable communities?

Granted, this question may not seem so simple, but before you can really even begin to think about answering it, you have to agree on a definition of what is required for a community to be “sustainable.”  That, my friend, is no easy task.  While the federal agencies have agreed on the principles that will guide their work, they have not created the minimum criteria that a community must meet to qualify as sustainable.  I fear it is a little like pornography, we all think we know it when we see it, but we may not all be looking for the same things.  This kind of baseline definition is essential.  If we are trying to assess and value the benefits of a “better” community, it has to be compared to a “regular” community.  Once we get beyond that high hurdle, we can direct our efforts to developing metrics, determining the necessary data, collecting the data in a consistent way and with enough participants to have statistical significance and analyzing it to calculate the benefits.

How do we pay for it?

It should all pay for itself - eventually.  The problem, unfortunately, is now.  Without the historical data to prove the long-term economic value of sustainable development, it’s hard to get the upfront funding.  This is a true anytime, but it’s particularly difficult given our current economic realities.  We all know the condition of our federal, state and local government budgets - and they don’t see any real light at the end of this fiscal tunnel (or if they do, it probably is a train).  Homeowners who might have used the equity in their homes to fund improvements may be unsure of their homes’ value or upside down in their mortgages, and banks don’t have any appetite for unquantified risk these days.  That’s why the Foundation is funding projects that demonstrate the benefits of sustainability and why we partner with our nonprofit partners to monitor what actually happens when people move into them.  It’s also why HUD, EPA and DOT - and hopefully other agencies - are working to align their resources to create these places and collect this data more quickly so that we can prove it out and everyone will agree on the economic benefit, as well as the environmental and social benefits.

All of this is a long-winded way of thanking the government for helping move the effort to create communities where families can live healthy, successful lives.  We appreciate that they are thinking about how to do this and willing to talk about how we can collaborate in the effort.  It wasn’t always the case that the agencies were focused in this way on addressing the issues that impact the everyday lives of the people they are supposed to be working for.   It is also a new idea that they are not only finally talking to each other, but talking to the people who use their programs as well.  To see this is refreshing, and even inspiring.  You probably haven’t heard it to often, but from all of us who participated in the conversation this week, “Thank you EPA! Thank you CEQ! Thank you DOT! Thank you HUD!”

I planned to write a post about joining the Board of Trustees of LISC, the Local Initiative Support Corporation, but my thoughts have been overwhelmed by the situation in Haiti.  As everyone has said - and as they said when the tsunami hit Asia and when Katrina devastated New Orleans - the damage and death is overwhelming.  I don’t think we are really able to comprehend the enormity of the loss, so I won’t even try to comment on it.

Two thoughts do continue to come to mind, though.  First, the willingness of people to respond to others with great compassion and generosity is truly amazing.  I believe that there is something in each of us, for no reason other than that we are human, that makes us rise to help others who are in need.  It doesn’t matter that we don’t know them, that we will never know them or that we aren’t completely sure what to do.  Our reaction is to do something, whether it’s stopping when we see a stranger with a flat tire on the side of the road or sending what we can to thousands impacted by a mass tragedy, as in Haiti.  (So as not to be too Pollyanna-ish, I do need to point out, that just as we need to be cautious about the stranger who offers to change our flat, we also need to be sure we aren’t being taken in by evil people who set up scams to fraudulently take our donations for their own profit.  Donor beware!)

I’m trying to understand how to balance this wonderful generosity of spirit that exists within us against how apathetic we can be about how other people live day in and day out.  Last week, 80% of Haitians lived under the poverty line and 54% lived in abject poverty, and we didn’t really care.  (Just as a reminder, living in poverty means that you don’t have enough money for the basic necessities of life: food and water, shelter, clothes and health care.)  In 2008, the World Bank estimated that 1.4 billion people live at or below the poverty line.  I’d bet that few of us knew that number, but I am positive that we all know that there are many people throughout the United States and the world who are in need every day.  I’m not quite sure, though, why we have so little enthusiasm for helping them.

I understand the difference between pictures of the emergencies that arise after a natural disaster and the image of chronically homeless people.  By definition, an emergency comes on quickly and will pass.  It’s a fire we can put out with quick action and a hefty splash of water. It’s something that could happen to anyone.

Chronic problems, of course, are long-term.  They are hard.  They didn’t appear overnight, and we can’t fix them in a day.  We need time, patience and perseverance.  And sometimes, it seems that the ones suffering have done something wrong - maybe it’s their own fault that they are where they are.

And, of course, we move on - the news cycle turns, the pictures fade and another emergency comes.

Like so many, we are responding as a Foundation and a Company to the horror that exists in Haiti, and my family is giving personally.  But, this week has also made me re-commit myself to doing more every day.

I had a conversation today with a consultant who works with organizations and executives on strategic planning and leadership, and it got some ideas swirling in my head.   We talked a bit about what my long term vision for the Foundation is, how we work with non-profits, how we keep the team’s morale up during the tough economy and what we want to leave behind when our time is done here.

That’s a lot to think about, let alone absorb and comment on in a meaningful way, during a brief conversation - or a blog post.  But the discussion circled back several times to the way an individual looks at their own position  - both with relation to other people and other organizations.  I hope I never start making the mistake of thinking people who work for nonprofits and whom I’ve never seen before are exceptionally nice to me because of me, rather than because the position I am lucky enough to hold.

If the people who work with me have a heart, it’s relatively easy to keep them motivated.  Sure, like everyone, we have our ups and downs, but it is very easy for us to remember the difference we make during the work day - every day.  We are helping people have homes to live, stay in their homes and have safer, more vibrant neighborhoods.  There is no doubt we actually change people’s lives - thousands of people every year.  In just 2009 alone, we gave $75 million in cash and products to over 3,500 nonprofit organizations.  Wow.  No one here is just stuffing a check into an overnight envelope - they are truly sending hope to another person.

And while I always want us to remember what we are accomplishing, I don’t want us to stop trying to do better.  As important as what we do is, what we don’t do and what we could have done are even more important.  I’m always watchful for the lost opportunity.  We have an awesome responsibility to invest our funds in our communities in the way that will provide the best outcomes for the most people.  We all need to be mindful that what we have done is great - amazing even - but that we can always do more.