This report provides an overview of our experience with the Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund (HNEF). We hope to inform other efforts investing in housing and retail in ways that can lead to equitable changes in neighborhood health and environmental conditions.
Jan 15
2021
2021
Jan 8
2021
2021
Building Communities That Thrive: A Conversation with Dr. Thea James
It’s tempting to boil down good health solely to factors like medical care, healthy food, and exercise. However, many other dynamics, like historic redlining and racial segregation, along with substandard housing, air pollution, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of access to jobs, healthy food, and green space, all play a role. Perhaps no one understands the interplay of these factors better than those who work in healthcare, including Dr. Thea James, who serves as Boston Medical Center’s Associate Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Mission, and Director of the Violence Prevention.
Nov 7
2020
2020
Biden Win Sets the Stage for a Greener Future, But Local Action Is Still Vital
The presidential election result is a welcome relief – especially amid the ongoing stresses of an unrelenting pandemic, hobbling economic hardship, and an overdue racial reckoning. We all deserve to take a moment and celebrate that. But even as we see the core values of our democracy vindicated after relentless voter suppression efforts, now is not the time to grow complacent.
Oct 19
2020
2020
CLF Leverages Funds to Improve Public Health and Strengthen Local Businesses in New York
CLF forges partnerships with maritime companies to leverage a creative funding solution for clean air: the EPA’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA).
Oct 1
2020
2020
Op-ed: Health care organizations should support access to healthy food
Covid-19 has laid bare the profound impact that your neighborhood has on your health. People in low-income communities of color with higher levels of pollution and overcrowded housing are being sickened and killed by the virus at much higher rates.
Sep 1
2020
2020
Transit-Oriented Development and Health: Update to the 2013 Health Impact Assessment to Inform Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund II
This new rapid Health Impact Assessment (HIA) explores how transit-oriented development impacts health and contributes to social, environmental, and economic changes. A collaboration between the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and Conservation Law Foundation
Kevin Breunig
Kevin Breunig comes to CLF with experience in both the corporate technology sector and nonprofit management. After 15 years in enterprise software marketing he followed his passion for the outdoors to work with environmental organizations. Kevin was VP of Communications and Marketing at the Appalachian Mountain Club, where he led efforts on brand strategy, digital…
Jul 22
2020
2020
Conservation Matters Summer 2020: Year in Review
In times of change and upheaval, there is also room for hope and inspiration. While we collectively have much hard work ahead of us, we also have much to commend. Our hope is that this report offers insight into the work that your support makes possible – and inspiration for what we know we can accomplish together.
Jul 21
2020
2020
A Participatory Action Research Field Guide from the Healthy Neighborhoods Study
This Field Guide describes how the partners in the Healthy Neighborhoods Study do research in 9 communities in Greater Metropolitan Boston. The project uses the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, which is grounded in the idea that the people who are most impacted by a problem are in the best position to understand and solve that problem. After years of research together, we wrote this guide for other communities interested in Participatory Action Research.
Jul 14
2020
2020
Communities of color hit hardest by heat waves
Like COVID-19, severe heat waves are not an “equal opportunity” health threat. The most disinvested neighborhoods — those dominated by buildings, pavement, and parking lots — are hit the hardest. The built environment of these places absorbs and traps heat, creating a “heat island effect” that makes them dangerously hotter than other neighborhoods while worsening their air quality.