A Local Approach
Healthy Acadia, a public health organization, is the leader and convener of the Downeast Housing Collaborative (DHC), a local community partnership with representatives from health care, social services, and public health. The DHC initially formed in August 2023 as one of three Rural Community Health Improvement Partnerships (R-CHIP) demonstration sites in Maine, transforming how local health systems operate to better address health-related social needs and improve health outcomes.
The DHC spent the initial 18 months:
- Establishing its partnership,
- Creating governance structures,
- Conducting a detailed readiness assessment,
- Identifying priority health-related social needs of their communities, and
- Developing strategies to address those needs.
The DHC created four implementation plans that focus on emergency housing, permanent supportive housing, and low- and moderate-income housing. Since then, Healthy Acadia, along with various partners, have implemented priority projects, such as emergency warming shelters, eviction prevention programming, housing navigation, and landlord partnership engagement.
The partnership has also sought funding opportunities to support implementation of identified strategies, including a successful HRSA Network Planning Grant that allows the DHC to explore improving health outcomes for individuals experiencing housing instability.
What Community Partners are Saying
“This is an important collaboration to address the social needs of our residents. We appreciate the focus on HRSNs and the ability to focus more specifically on housing, as this is a critical issue for our communities. It is good that there are discussions and an assessment occurring across the two counties.”
