Stable Housing is Key to Child Health
Stable, decent, affordable housing is the essential foundation for child health and development and overall family well-being. When children experience unstable housing and their families are forced to move, it can be harmful in both the short and long term. One potential impact for any move, especially cost-driven moves, is being disconnected from critical safety net programs.
Social safety net programs that provide nutrition and health insurance to low-income families—such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Medicaid—help to offset family food and healthcare costs. When a move is necessary and impacts a household’s ability to keep or access critical benefits, those displacements have larger consequences for early childhood health.
Access to Programs Disrupted when Needed Most
Maintaining benefits through WIC, SNAP, and Medicaid requires caregivers to recertify their eligibility 1-2 times per year via mailed forms and documentation, phone calls, and/ or in-person appointments.
Moving may disrupt families’ receipt of their mail from social service agencies or push families to a new social service office’s catchment area, breaking connections they may have had with another caseworker. Moves across state or county lines could mean differences in income eligibility or recertification processes. In these stressful circumstances, documents can be misplaced, making reconnection to support even harder.
Weaving together social safety net supports is a time- consuming and difficult process for families, often requiring duplicative documentation and information submissions. When families manage to enroll in and stay connected to multiple programs, they help support families and individuals in keeping a roof over their head and food on the table. However, any disruption can have dramatic and long-term consequences as young children may lose access to critical food and health programs when they need them the most.