Question: Would you please provide me with a scope of work/overview for the Healthy Homes program and how much money has been allocated to the program since its inception? (Councilwoman Greene)
Response:
Alexandrians continue to rate housing conditions as a major concern for quality of life in the city. After successfully completing the strategies in the 2022 Healthy Homes Action Plan, the Alexandria Healthy Homes Network (the Network) is launching a new 2025 Healthy Homes Action Plan. Priority areas in this plan focus on mold, pests, smoke, hoarding, and Alex311, and were selected by community members through extensive engagement across Alexandria. Each strategy to address the priority areas was suggested by residents and refined by the Network. The Network—a coalition of nearly 30 organizations working together to improve home conditions—will be implementing this work alongside impacted residents.
In addition to the plan strategies, a number of City agencies and organizations are implementing other home condition efforts that align with this work. For example, Alexandria Health Department’s ALX Breathes program offers home-based education, referrals, and green cleaning supplies to those with asthma or COPD. The Office of Housing is developing an update to the Housing Master Plan that includes principles and goals focused on how housing can contribute to resident health and wellbeing. The Office of Code Administration is enhancing its proactive rental inspection work and conducting more outreach, both to property managers on best practices, and to tenants on how to contact the City for code support.
The new 2025 Healthy Homes Action Plan launches in early April using interagency workgroups to implement the five strategies:
- Improve awareness and access to affordable legal services, testing resources, and remediation support to identify and fix mold.
- Address the mental health factors and physical demands related to extreme clutter or hoarding through new partnerships and services alongside the Hoarding Task Force.
- Co-design comprehensive non-smoking measures—including policies, education, and infrastructure—for residential buildings.
- Develop proactive and responsive pest control measures by coordinating data-driven efforts between property managers/landlords and city abatement work.
Partner with Alex311 to address healthy home-related issues by:
- Simplifying the resident portal, increasing multilingual access, incorporating plain language, and streamlining the reporting process.
- Standardizing back-end processes in partnership with relevant departments to ensure consistency in outcomes and drive data-centered decision-making.
Current Funding Source
There are currently no allocated funds to support the Healthy Homes Initiative. Previously, the Alexandria Health District utilized federal grant funds awarded to the Virginia Department of Health for contracted community health worker services that included support for Healthy Homes-related activities. The grant, which was due to end June 2027, was unexpectedly rescinded on March 24, 2025, leaving the services unfunded after that date. As a result, it is not likely that AHD will be able to keep the contracted position that serves in the capacity of a community health coordinator beyond the end of this fiscal year, and existing staff would need to support continued activity. AHD has used some vacancy savings to purchase supplies for the ALX Breathes program, however, there is no dedicated funding for the coordination of the Healthy Homes Network and implementation of the Healthy Homes Action Plan. Work in other agencies also does not have dedicated funding for healthy homes activities. Multiple departments have collaborated in supporting submissions for grant funds but have not yet been successful. Recently, Housing funds deployed to Rebuilding Together Alexandria were reprogrammed to enable ALX Breathes-related improvements in a limited number of units at the Arlandria Chirilagua Housing Cooperative when households were prioritized for assistance.
Scope of Work for Implementing the Healthy Homes Initiative
The bulk of this work utilizes interagency coordination and collaboration to implement data-driven approaches and avoid duplication. This approach also leverages different expertise to best serve residents and property managers, and the efforts fall into two major buckets of work.
Community Engagement
This category includes education and training for residents on how to maintain a healthy home, their legal rights as tenants, and how to get support from City agencies or outside entities to address home condition issues. This category also includes community engagement efforts to ensure strategy implementation aligns with resident expectations and needs. For example, working with residents to review revised Alex311 categories before they are finalized or getting input on draft guides to address mold. All these costs might be shared by multiple City agencies such as Health, Code, and Housing.
Home Modifications and Service Navigation
This category includes direct support services and resources for people experiencing poor home conditions. That includes the ALX Breathes program for lower income residents with asthma or COPD, to address aging in place, accessibility, respiratory health, and connections to home repairs programs.
The cost to fund a position or contractor to replace the lost grant-funded position would be an additional $90,000.