United Way of Rhode Island hosted nearly 300 Rhode Islanders in a day-long workshop on March 14 at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet to focus on this question: How does the lack of affordable safe, healthy homes impact our economy and what can we do to fix it?
One of two keynote speakers, Dr. Megan Sandel, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and Principal Investigator with Children’s HealthWatch, shared her belief that stable and affordable housing is one of the most effective vaccines for children’s overall health: “Only one in four of my patients have access to this ‘vaccine.’ And without stable housing, all of our other interventions fail.”