See How it Works
Preservation of Affordable Housing’s (POAH’s) innovation draws on new insights into how trauma affects the body and brain to build and support communities where everyone can thrive.
Innovation Milestones
- Published and shared the Trauma-Informed Housing Toolkit to help spread trauma-informed best practices across the sector
- Developed new trauma-informed approaches to property operations, including critical incident response, unit inspections, lease renewals, and staff wellbeing, all available in the toolkit
- Launched the POWER initiative to help renters achieve personal and financial goals
- Introduced new design guidelines for the build environment through POAH’s Basis of Design, a public design resource
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Trauma-informed design is not ‘meet us where we’re at, we’re trying to help you.’ It’s, ‘What do you need to be able to live somewhere consistently and stably?’
Marissa Rogers, former resident, Flat 9 at Whittier, Boston, who helped co-design the Trauma-Informed Housing innovation
What a Difference a Cohort Makes
“The Breakthrough Challenge allowed us to build a bigger table, where residents and frontline staff had real power and leadership over decisions in their communities,” says Julianna Stuart-Lomax, VP of Community Impact at POAH. “It gave us the space to imagine a new kind of housing system for this country.”
What’s Next
- Scaling the innovation internally, using trauma-informed principles to inform POAH’s own design, operations, and culture
- Launching a new Trauma-Informed Housing training series in partnership with Housing Partnership Network (HPN) and Affordable Homes & Communities (AHC)
- Bringing trauma-informed approaches to new large-scale transformation efforts in Miami and St. Louis
- Advocating to influence state and national housing policy
