A few years ago, San Antonio City Council member Rey Saldaña tried his own transportation experiment. He ditched his car and relied on public transit for one month. The good? Saldaña met great people. He read. He explored the city. Parking was no problem. The bad? When buses ran late, he missed connections and showed up late to council meetings. Rain drenched him at bus stops. He had to skip fun activities because of a lack of frequent routes. Saldaña’s eye-opening experiment led him to champion more funding for VIA Metropolitan Transit (VIA), the regional mass transit agency serving San Antonio and Bexar County, which operates with the least amount of funding among all major transit authorities in Texas. His efforts spurred the city to invest millions to improve public ...
“Affordable living” is a myth for many people in San Antonio, Texas (63.6% Latino). More than half of people here don’t make the $18 an hour needed to afford the median apartment rent. Population and job growth outpace housing by 2.3 to 1. Affordable housing is lacking. Evictions nearly doubled between 2013 and 2016. This threatens economic opportunity and health for many Latino families. That’s why the Mayor’s Housing Policy Task Force’s new report urges the San Antonio City Council to budget for new housing jobs, triple city spending on affordable housing production and rehabilitation, and even change the city’s charter to create new ways to pay for more affordable housing. “For us to make a significant impact, it’s going to require a long view and ...
Buses don’t run to a Latino mobile home community outside Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Instead, people there are forced to rely on cars─dangerous, expensive, polluting cars─ when they need to get to jobs, food, and healthcare. This isolates them from opportunities for health, jobs, and affordable housing, just like many other suburban and rural parts of our nation. Fortunately, planned public transit improvements will enable more buses across the Twin Cities, including the mobile home community. But how? Will it work for Latinos and all vulnerable neighborhoods?
Twin Cities Growing in Population, Traffic
The area to the east of the Twin Cities─the Interstate 94 (I-94) corridor─is expected to see a 24% increase in population and a 30% increase in jobs by 2040, according ...
Sonja Trauss hated her commute. Driving her car a long way from home to her job as a math teacher was unproductive, wasted time. It was expensive. It was stressful, harming her physical and mental health. And it was dangerous. Yet this was Trauss’ reality with no affordable housing near her job. But Trauss grew tired of paying so much time, money, and stress to drive a car because of a shortage of affordable housing in Marin County (16.1% Latino) in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. She decided to make a stand. Trauss formed a group to push for more affordable housing and challenged developers, decision-makers, and opposition to affordable housing in this region. Did it work?
Transportation Costs Matter for Affordable Housing
Behind housework, the daily car ...
Health starts and is sustained in the communities we live, work, and play. However, in many places, affordable housing is not available, subjecting families to unstable, inferior, and crowded housing while isolating them in areas with limited access to education and employment opportunities. This reduces their ability to stay healthy. It increases their risk of physical and mental health issues. Achieving and maintaining good health requires the efforts of urban and transportation planners, housing experts, elected leaders, educators, and many more. UPDATE: View a recap of this Tweetchat on Wakelet. Use #SaludTues on August 21, 2018, to tweet about why affordable housing matters for health, and what you can do to create healthier places to live! WHAT: #SaludTues ...
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) wants your input to shape transportation planning and spending across the state for the next 10 years, in what is known as the Unified Transportation Program (UTP). The UTP will guide construction, development, and related activities for 13,000 projects. However, the program prioritizes congestion relief over safety, connectivity, and economic development, says nonprofit Farm & City. You can speak up for transportation that prioritizes Texans’ wellbeing! Copy one of the model public comments drafted by our Salud America! research team, click the “submit” button, and paste the comment on txdot.gov’s comments website by Aug. 20, 2018. Be sure to click “No” in the required field asking if this is a complaint.
Model ...
Our roads and walkways could be our path to good health and wellbeing. But cities are stuck in a rut of prioritizing cars over people. Thankfully, over the past decade, many organizations are contributing to the growing body of health and safety research and advocacy to influence transportation projects and policies.
Knowing the Impact
In 2012, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a research brief and infographic on how transportation affects health. “Health costs associated with traffic crashes, air pollution, and physical inactivity add up to hundreds of billions of dollars each year, but health is typically not considered in transportation policy and planning,” the 2012 Health Policy Snapshot Issue Brief states.
Changing the Speed Limit
In 2011, the AAA ...
Only 1 in 2 big U.S. localities—500,000 or more people—have a local board of health, compared to over eight in ten small localities—less than 50,000 people. That means half our big cities miss out on public input on important health decisions. Half our big cities do not connect their local health departments to the community they serve or other public officials. Here are some benefits of having a local board of health for your city-and for you.
What a Local Board of Health Does
A local board of health provides community oversight and guidance for local health departments. They help set public health priorities for communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the top ten responsibilities of local boards of health are: Review public health ...
A new action-oriented guide is available to foster collaboration between the health sector and the organizations working to improve the conditions of poverty, known as the community development sector. Collaboration among these sectors is critical because more than 80% of the nearly $3.5 trillion spent on medical care each year in the U.S. is spent on treating chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and related to the conditions of poverty. Latinos and low-income populations are disproportionately burdened by the conditions of poverty, thus face higher rates of chronic disease.
Conditions of Poverty
Health is not created in a doctor’s office, it is created in healthy, equitable, and prosperous communities. However, not all communities were created equal. Some have ...
