A8 Editorial The Boston Globe TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019
F
acing skyrocketing rents, the phrase
“worried sick” is taking on a literal
meaning for low-income families who
struggle month to month to keep a roof
over their head.
That’s why the announcement last week that three
big Boston hospitals — Boston Medical Center,
Brigham and Women’s, and Boston Children’s — are
partnering to spend $3 million to help poor families
stay in their homes makes so much sense. By zeroing
in on the close link between health and stable housing,
the initiative is a model for taking a multidimensionalapproach to public policy.
It’s also a recognition of the continued lack of
housing that’s affordable for low-income families,
particularly outside Boston. In Massachusetts, for
every 100 families with extremely low incomes, “there
are only 46 available units of housing
they would be able to afford without
spending more than 30 percent of their
income on rent,” according to a recent
study by The Boston Foundation.
Other reports have shown a link
between housing struggles and health
problems. A national study by Children’s
HealthWatch, a policy research network
based at BMC, looked at three forms of
unstable housing in low-income families
— such as being chronically late on rent
payments — and found that they were
each correlated with adverse health
outcomes in those children and their
parents.
Enter the three hospitals, who together launched
the Innovative Stable Housing Initiative. It’s a pilot
project funded by a combined $3 million investment
over three years. By acting together, they were able to
amplify the impact beyond what a single institution
would have funded, demonstrating the power of
collaboration. The idea is to fund programs directed at
helping families find and maintain stable housing,
including those at risk of eviction.
One of those programs receiving funds from thethree-way partnership is City Life/Vida Urbana, a
housing advocacy nonprofit in Boston. The group’s
executive director told the Globe the funds will be
used to provide legal assistance to families facing
immediate risk of eviction and other urgent housing
needs. The money will go toward helping
75 families secure stable housing.
The three institutions had been
required to set aside funds for
community mitigation purposes to win
state approval for recent construction
projects. Still, they could have directed
those funds to any community project or
health cause. That the three decided to
come together to focus on housing
insecurity is notable.
The measure also follows a national
trend. Kaiser Permanente, the health
conglomerate based in Oakland, Calif.,
has also focused on housing as a health
prescription, pledging $200 million for an impact-
investing fund to buy affordable housing in the Bay
Area. Kaiser is also funding several pilot programs to
tackle homelessness.
Increasing the supply of housing in Massachusetts,
including affordable units, will take sustained effort
and policy reforms, especially in suburbs scared of
new housing. It won’t happen overnight. But the links
between housing and health provide yet another
reminder of why building more housing, up and down
the income ladder, must remain a priority.Three Boston hospitals step up for housing
Opinion
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epending on your definition of “mass
shooting,” there have been
between 250 and 300 mass
shootings in the United States in- We know some of their
names: El Paso, Gilroy, Dayton,
Virginia Beach. Others pass in
relative silence, part of the
susurrus of gunfire, sirens, and
funeral bells of the American soundscape. They disappear,
and government moves on to its next failure.
And once again the National Rifle Association and the
politicians it supports are trying to drive the narrative that
mental health is the root
cause of these shootings.
On Aug. 9, in a typically
breathtaking spray of self-aggrandizement on the White
House lawn, Donald Trump said, “A gun doesn’t pull the
trigger — a sick mind pulls the trigger” and “I don’t want
crazy people to have guns.” But mental health isn’t an issue
in most mass shootings, and this tired trope is the pinnacle
of deadly hypocrisy from those intent on avoiding the true
causes of preventable gun violence in America.
Studies of mass shooters tell the true story: Only
between 20 and 25 percent of mass shooters have a
diagnosed mental illness. The data simply do not back up
the new twist on the NRA’s old cliché: “Guns don’t kill
people; crazy people kill people.” And falling for this
narrative is deadly.
While it’s true that people with severe mental illness are
slightly more likely to have violent tendencies, they are far,
far more likely to be the victims of violent attacks. And the
rhetoric from the president, his NRA masters, and those
who do not want to address the core cause of gun violence
— namely the easy availability of guns in America — further
stigmatizes and victimizes those with these terrible
diseases.
But let’s try, for a moment, to think like the president
and disregard the overwhelming evidence disproving his
basic thesis. Instead, let’s incorrectly presume that mental
health problems are the cause of mass shootings and that
the mentally ill are a danger to those of us lucky enough not
to be afflicted with serious mental illness.
Why then would you work so hard to remove access to
effective, affordable mental health?
The Trump administration, Senate majority leader
Mitch McConnell, and their allies in federal and state
government have launched attack after attack on the
Affordable Care Act since Trump first took office. While
those efforts failed in the Senate, a lawsuit led by Texas
and joined by 19 other states puts the Affordable Care
Act at real risk. The Trump administration refuses to
defend the ACA against this lawsuit.
If the ACA is struck down, the results will be staggering.
The Urban Institute estimates that nearly 20 million people
will lose their health insurance. That’s 20 million people
who will lose their ability to access any mental health
services. But it doesn’t stop there. Because the ACA
expanded on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction
Equity Act of 2008, millions more could lose some or all of
their mental health coverage, even if they have insurance
through their employer.
Additionally, the Medicaid work requirements that the
administration is attempting to enact will cause even
further loss of insurance and benefits and probably deepen
poverty. A Kaiser Family Foundation report found that
“even when working, adults with Medicaid face high rates
of financial and food insecurity, as they are still living in or
near poverty.” Removing access to health care for those
unable to find or keep even those low-wage jobs will be
devastating. Most studies show that poverty correlates with
an increased likelihood of mental illness; taking away
benefits from the poor will simply make more people unable
to afford or obtain treatment for their mental illness.
By Trump’s own so-called logic, this alone will increasethe risk of mass shootings in America.
Although we’ve already established that Trump is
wrong about the links between mental illness and mass
shootings, there is an important intersection between
poverty, suicide, and guns. People living in poverty are
more likely to die by suicide. People living in poverty are
more likely to suffer from depression. People with
depression are more likely to attempt, and die from,
suicide. More people die by gun suicide than gun
homicide, and since guns are the most deadly method
when attempting suicide, the true madness in the GOP’s
alleged efforts to reduce violence is apparent.
If Trump and his party are serious about reducing gun
violence, the only way to do so is to reduce the availability
and accessibility of guns while reversing their cruel and
misguided attacks on access to health care and social
support services. Any politician or pundit making a
different argument is telling a deadly lie.
And already, too many of us have died because of it.Ben Jackson is a writer, activist, and cofounder, with
Alyssa Milano, of #NoRA, a coalition of artists, activists,
survivors, and policy experts dedicated to countering the
political influence of the NRA. He lives in Massachusetts.
Follow #NoRA on Twitter @NoRA4USA.By Ben Jackson
Mass shootings and
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ILLUSTRATION BY LESLEY BECKER/GLOBE STAFF; ADOBEKATHERINE TAYLOR FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/FILE 2016A City Life/Vida Urbana meeting in East Boston.