In 2017, with Community Redevelopment Legal Assistance (CRLA) funding from the PA Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Board, RHLS began working with community partners in northern Schuylkill County to improve housing security for low-income residents. One of the needs identified was home repairs, which would improve the residents’ health while helping to revitalize their neighborhoods. In the summer of 2018, RHLS connected with Lehigh Valley Health Network, a healthcare system that had recently acquired the hospital in Pottstown, Schuylkill County, and connected them with Schuylkill Community Action (SCA), a nonprofit that runs home repair programs along with many other services.
Conversations over the next two years resulted in a plan to develop a home repair program for LVHN patients with asthma. LVHN would refer patients living in targeted towns in northern Schuylkill County to SCA whose staff would be trained to identify asthma triggers in the home as well as other home repair needs. In 2020, RHLS used CARES Act funds and then the CRLA grant to hire a consultant, Green & Healthy Homes Initiatives, to provide technical assistance in moving the project forward. GHHI, SCA, and LVHN developed a budget and SCA applied for project funding. They were awarded a grant from the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Office in the fall of 2022 and a PHARE grant in June of 2023.
RHLS represented SCA in negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with LVHN and the program finally opened for business this past summer. Twenty-one families have been referred to SCA by LVHN. SCA is processing them for eligibility as well as interest in the program. Some may only need advice from LVHN’s home health care worker and not need repairs. The grant funding will cover repairs at a total of 15 homes. Once the repairs and remediation of asthma triggers are completed, LVHN expects to see fewer emergency room visits by those families, the families are likely to experience other health benefits and see their property values rise, and SCA and LVHN may look for future partnerships.