The Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy: We Can’t Gentrify Our Way to Health Equity - Health & Medicine Policy Research Group

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The Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy: We Can’t Gentrify Our Way to Health Equity

Dec 8, 2017

Who has a right to the city? How does housing and community displacement destabilize communities and stand in the way of health equity?

On Friday, December 8, 2017 at Loyola University Regents Hall, Health & Medicine hosted a forum–featuring keynote Chloe Gurin-Sands, MPH of the Metropolitan Planning Council–to investigate these and other questions. This cross-sectoral discussion connected people fighting against displacement and gentrification with people working in healthcare, public health, housing, and other sectors. The event work to position displacement prevention as a core public health agenda item, a necessary part of the process of achieving health equity.

Through this conversation, we worked to build capacity and understanding of how community displacement impedes health equity and social justice and is a causal factor for health inequities in the Chicago area.

As hospitals, health systems, insurers, and health departments increasingly work on social determinants of health such as housing—and take action on the broader concept that place matters to health—this forum provided an opportunity to examine how we can collectively work to ensure that the broader pattern of housing and community displacement is disrupted. A recording of this forum is provided by CANTV.

Agenda, Speakers, & Presentations–Click here to view forum notes
Welcome & Introduction
Margie Schaps, Executive Director, Health & Medicine Policy Research Group
Wesley Epplin, Director, Health Equity Initiative–View the presentation
Tiffany N. Ford, Policy Analyst for Health Reform & Health Equity

Historical Overview
Janet Smith, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy; Co-Director, Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, University of Illinois at Chicago: Broad overview of the politicized history of housing in Chicago–View the presentation

Keynote Address
Chloe Gurin-Sands, Associate, Metropolitan Planning Council: Connecting gentrification and displacement to public health and health equity–View the presentation

Voices: A Multimedia Presentation
Interviews and other available data compiled to help us understand gentrification and displacement in Chicago

Feedback from the Field Panel
Action and resource sharing, connecting, and visioning for the future
Jawanza Malone, Executive Director, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization
Juliet de Jesus Alejandre, Youth Program Director/Lead Organizer, Logan Square Neighborhood Association
Roxanne Smith, Communities United

Key Note Speaker:
Chloe Gurin-Sands, MPH is an Associate at the Metropolitan Planning Council, where she works to bridge public health and urban planning. Her primary projects of focus currently are the Cost of Segregation, Great Rivers Chicago, and the Community Development Health ROI project. Her professional interests revolve around the relationship between the natural and built environment and health, and integrating health equity into planning and policy decisions. Chloe received her master’s degree in public health from the University of Illinois at Chicago where her capstone project examined the potential health benefits of improving urban blue space through the Great Rivers Chicago initiative.

About The Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy:
Each policy forum in The Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy series will focus on health reform efforts and public health both in Illinois and in the Chicago area, including discussions of best practices from around the country.

Thank you to
The Chicago Community Trust for their support of the Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy series

And to our co-sponsors
Loyola University’s Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy and the Civitas ChildLaw Center for providing space for The Chicago Forum for Justice in Health Policy and to the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health for partnering with us to offer continuing education contact hours.