Kineara’s founder, Maria Morgan, last night delivered a compelling keynote talk at the recent Healthy City Design International Congress, emphasising the critical need housing and health equity in our communities. The event, sponsored by Kineara’s partner Impact on Urban Health (IOUH), provided a platform for Maria to highlight Kineara’s mission and work, and to discuss the urgent need for meaningful collaboration between housing and health sectors.
In her thought-provoking speech, Maria Morgan emphasized the importance of focusing on the most “vulnerable” individuals within our communities. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the significance of our living spaces, highlighting the essential relationship between housing and health. During the pandemic, many communities experienced overcrowding, long-standing disrepair, loss of income, mental and physical health challenges, and financial concerns. Research shows that poor-quality housing has a significant impact on an individual’s health, costing the NHS billions each year.
Maria stressed the need for bold collaboration, learning from past mistakes, forward-thinking, and critical discussions regarding housing and health in challenging times, drawing attention to the fact that over 90% of Kineara’s clients experience high levels of stress and anxiety, leading to physical health issues, because of being housing insecure. She highlighted the importance of conferences like Healthy City Design in promoting urban renewal and health equity, where rich conversations and meaningful actions can take place.
The speech also drew attention to the basic human needs described by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, with an emphasis on the first tier, which includes shelter. In this tier, challenges such as air quality, food poverty, housing affordability, and safety were noted. Maria Morgan called for a stronger focus on addressing these most basic needs for better health outcomes, so everyone, including the most vulnerable, can go on to play an active role in addressing issues such as climate change and creating thriving cities and communities.
It was encouraging to hear a growing appreciation and active acknowledgement from the building planning, architecture, and Urban renewal arenas, of the link between health and housing, and their work with councils in considering wellbeing in the design process.
With Impact on Urban Health’s involvement in the conference, I’m hopeful we will begin to see a growing presence of cross-sector collaboration from ground roots organisation, housing associations, designers, architects, and of course the voice of the community, contributing to these important conversations.
Maria Morgan
Maria’s speech served as a powerful call to action. Kineara’s holistic approach, its dedication to supporting vulnerable communities, and its advocacy for the critical relationship between housing and health act as a blueprint towards achieving healthier and more equitable urban environments.
