The 2025 Healthy Homes Action Plan is Here!
After over a year of working with Alexandrians to understand Alexandria's biggest home condition issues and co-design solutions, Alexandria's Healthy Homes Network has released our interactive plan to help make Alexandria's homes healthier.
About the Healthy Homes Initiative
Everyone deserves access to healthy and safely hazard-free housing. Unfortunately, not everyone in our community can count on that, particularly our lower-income residents, those with disabilities, seniors, and communities of color. Equity and the conditions for healthy housing cannot be created overnight, but together, we can make meaningful changes that improve residents’ quality of life in just a few years.
The Healthy Homes Initiative works to ensure all Alexandrians have healthy and safe, hazard-free housing. Based on a 2022 report put together by the Alexandria Health Department and the National Center on Healthy Housing, the Healthy Homes Initiative includes several programs led by different departments, community-based organizations, landlords, and homeowners in Alexandria. Each year, different programs will advance the Healthy Homes Initiative in different ways.
Healthy Homes Plan & Progress
Alexandria's 2023 Healthy Homes Survey
In December 2023, the Healthy Homes Network conducted a community-wide survey on healthy housing. Staff and volunteers collected surveys around the community in English, Spanish, Amharic, Dari, and Pashto.
Based on nearly 900 residents’ responses, pests, mold, and smoke were among the top housing issues in our city. Respondents also defined what a healthy home meant to them. Definitions included:
- "For my sons, to have no insects, rats, and cockroaches, animals. To have no fumes of marijuana.”
- “Free from pests--bugs and mice, quick repairs when requested, fair and affordable rent prices, remediated mold and lead so the environment is safe.”
- “Clean of toxins and toxic behavior”
After reviewing the data, the Network agreed that further engagement is needed to identify root causes and sustainable solutions for tenants, homeowners, and property managers. As a result, the Network hosted Community Conversations, described below.
Alexandria's 2023 Healthy Homes Action Plan
Community partners and residents have shared their experience and knowledge to help create a roadmap for the next year of healthy housing initiatives. This work is implemented by Alexandria’s Healthy Homes Network—a coalition launched in June 2023 to improve home conditions.
We need your help to get this work done. Email healthmatters@vdh.virginia.gov to get involved either as a resident or an organization.
Healthy Homes Survey Data Tables
Alexandria's Healthy Homes Community Conversation Series
From April - June 2024, Alexandria Health Department co-hosted nine “Community Conversations” with residents and property managers in Alexandria as part of the City’s Healthy Homes Action Plan work.
Read about the results in the Summary of Findings.
Next, Alexandria’s Healthy Homes Network will be prioritizing and refining these strategies into the next Healthy Homes Action Plan. Want to help build these solutions and weigh in on how they’re going? Join our email list.
Healthy Homes Network Members
- *Co-Chair Alexandria Health Department
- *Co-Chair Rebuilding Together
- ACT for Alexandria
- Alexandria City Public Schools
- ALIVE!
- ARHA
- Cedar Architecture
- City of Alexandria Code Administration
- City of Alexandria Department of Community and Human Services
- City of Alexandria Fire Department
- City of Alexandria Office of Climate Action
- City of Alexandria Office of Housing
- City of Alexandria Office of Race and Social Equity
- City of Alexandria Office of Performance and Analytics
- Carefirst
- CIM Group
- Commission on Aging
- Edu-Futuro
- ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia (ECNV)
- Housing Alexandria
- Inova Health System
- Legal Services of Northern Virginia
- Partnership for a Healthier Alexandria
- Public Health Advisory Commission
- Senior Services of Alexandria
- Tenants and Workers United
ALX Breathes
As part of the Healthy Homes Initiative, AHD partnered with the community to create ALX Breathes. ALX Breathes is a free program from the Alexandria Health Department (AHD) that helps residents with asthma or COPD breathe easier at home.
Background on Home Conditions in Alexandria
The Alexandria Health Department worked with the National Center on Healthy Housing to review local healthy homes policy, program, and data assets and gaps in Alexandria. Read the report hereand find the detailed code analysis here. This report showed that while the city has some resources to deal with the challenges around home-related health conditions, we needed to do more to coordinate those efforts and truly address the root causes of poor health. The Action Plan for 2023 is the next step in this work to coordinate existing resources and partners for systemic change.