One of the most critical periods in a child’s development and learning is from birth to five years old. The first five years of child development are crucial to their health, wellbeing, and the overall trajectory of their lives in various ways.
After most Americans were forced to work from home due to COVID-19, we know firsthand the effect our environment can have on our mental health and productivity. As a child in their developmental years, however, their environment can have a much more profound impact on their cognitive development and psychological and physical health.
Although more than a century of observation and research have documented how household triggers affect children’s physical health, poor housing can be equally destructive to their emotional, psychological, and behavioral health and development. Quality and affordably priced housing are integral to hitting the developmental milestones necessary for proper growth for a child.
How does poor quality housing affect a child’s development and mental well-being?
Growing up in a decent, affordable home has a powerful effect on children. Studies draw a straight line between the quality, location, and affordability of housing on a child’s ability to thrive.
Researchers have found that poor-quality housing may create stress for parents, increase their mental health problems, and limit their ability to regulate family activities.
The stress that parents experience due to living in poor conditions can translate into emotional and behavioral problems in their children. Children whose families are forced to move frequently searching for better or more affordable living situations often struggle. And parents paying too much for a place to live too often must deplete financial resources that otherwise could be invested in their children’s health, education, and futures.
Instead of the home being a source of security and escape from life’s pressures, an environment with quality deficiencies may add to other stresses experienced by low-income families, leading to a cumulative negative impact on well-being and development.
Poor living conditions can also prevent children from engaging in playful and social activities, which are beneficial to their cognitive, social, and emotional development. In addition, cramped or unsafe environments restrict children from exploring, interacting with, and learning from the world around them.
Play helps children develop new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they need to face future challenges.
Health professionals focus on four different dimensions of housing that impact health in children:
- Quality of the home. Does it have things that could make kids sick or things that can promote health?
- Stability. Is the family staying in the same place, or are they at risk of homelessness or eviction?
- Affordability. Is the family able to afford their home without making other sacrifices like food or heat, or health care? Think of hunger and unstable housing as being the twin demons for low-income kids. Too often, families have to choose between rent and eating.
- Location. What is the neighborhood and community like where the home is? All of those dimensions are incredibly important to children’s health.
Why should we care about the effects of housing on a child’s development?
Dr. Megan T. Sandel, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, answers this question for us in an interview with Habitat For Humanity:
“We all know that a stable home serves as the foundation for everything. While it may seem like helping someone have a stable home only helps them, you are missing an entire ripple effect in how much that helps the community.”
If you have a kid who is stable and is showing up to school, that makes everyone in the classroom learn better. People with steady jobs are paying taxes, and employers don’t have to go through the expense of firing people and training new people to come on board. There is definitive evidence around public safety that shows that stable communities are safer communities.
We have to get out of the mindset that stable housing is an individual-level intervention. A stable home is a community-level intervention. We all benefit.”
Further, having thousands of children living in poor-quality homes leads to detrimental effects for society. For example, when housing problems exacerbate children’s depressive or aggressive behavior, it can affect their peers, contribute to teacher burnout, reduce school performance ratings, and lead to behavior-based calls that pull parents away from work and hinder productivity. And that’s just the short term.
Evidence shows that psychological problems experienced during childhood can reduce adult earnings (by one-fourth by age 50) and decrease one’s chances of establishing long-term, stable relationships. Furthermore, anxiety, depression, and aggression in children can lead to lifelong mental illness. The economic burden of mental illness is significant: the World Health Organization estimated that by 2030, the global cost of mental illness would be over $6 trillion.
Poor housing quality is thus a collective problem. Ensuring adequate housing conditions supports children’s healthy development, helps their schools and classrooms succeed, strengthens the economy, and reduces the current and future health care costs.
Closing statements:
Because so many critical developmental periods are concentrated in early childhood, young children may be most at risk. However, research finds connections between housing and mental health during other periods of life as well.
As researchers strive to understand the reasons for these complex psychological effects, policymakers, housing developers, advocates, and funders should note that housing quality lays the foundation for children’s cognitive development – creating a ripple effect in the intricate web of our society.
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Our “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” here at Holladay Ventures is to provide attainable homes for 100,000 families. So, why not start now? Why not proactively start investing in attainable options for current and future residents of Nashville?
We always seek to partner with impact-driven investors, or as we like to call them, IMPACT INVESTORS. Together, Holladay Ventures and our impact investors have the power to create options for the working-class residents in our community. This is a call for massive change, and as an investor, a call for major return on investment.
Interested in Impact Investing with Evan and Holladay Ventures for recession-resistant returns and having a positive impact with your capital? Set up a call with our investor relations team to see if it’s a good fit: https://holladayventures.com/investors/
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