Trauma is a leading health concern in the U.S., and its existence and impact is hardly debated in subsidized housing. Yet affordable housing models that consider and respond to residents’ trauma are largely unexplored. A national housing developer, Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH), wanted to explore how affordable housing could encourage resiliency. how we manage, to rules and policies, to building design

As a project lead with Design Impact, I designed and facilitated a community design process with my teammates to examine POAH’s current operations and develop more people-centered rules, policies, and building design that prioritized mental health and wellness.

I facilitated community research workshops to train teams of resident and staff to interview people who lived and worked in POAH housing. I also coached staff and organizational leaders through multiple pilots to test over a dozen trauma-informed housing policies, programs, and service models, which were later rolled out across POAH’s national portfolio.

Read our insights, findings, and lessons in this nationally distributed toolkit for housing practitioners. The project was also featured in the National Building Museum in DC.