The document discusses a case study of the Bronx Healthy Buildings Program, a cross-sector collaboration in the Bronx aimed at reducing asthma triggers and health issues. The program is led by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and involves partnerships between community organizations, a hospital, city agencies, and others. The collaboration addresses social determinants of health by providing home assessments and upgrades, jobs and training, and community leadership development. Key challenges discussed include balancing partner interests, power differentials, and building relationships.

1. WHEN COMMUNITY WINS:
BREAKING THROUGH SILOS FOR
SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY-LED
COLLABORATION
Sandra Lobo, Executive Director, the Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition
Katherine Mella, MIT Community Innovators Lab and Bronx
Cooperative Development Initiative

2. Session Learning Objectives
• Participants will learn about a successful case study involving
cross-sector collaboration aimed at addressing root causes of poor
health outcomes
• Participants will learn about the impact of health outcomes when
community serves as lead convener of unlikely partners from
across sectors and guides program design, implementation, and
evaluation
• Participants will learn how to activate community members in
taking action in addressing social determinants of health
• Participants will learn about ways to balance the diverse and often
competing interests between individual partners within a
collaborative project and community goals

3. Bronx Healthy Buildings
Program Overview
In June 2015, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
won a 2-year, $250K implementation grant from the inaugural
BUILD Health Challenge for Healthy Buildings.
As part of the grant guidelines, Montefiore Medical Center, the
hospital partner, committed to an in-kind match.
The Bronx Healthy Buildings Program (Healthy Buildings) is a
cross-sector initiative to promote holistic community health by
addressing upstream causes of asthma-related emergency
department visits and hospitalizations in the Northwest Bronx by
providing green and healthy retrofits.

4. Bronx Healthy Buildings Program
Goals
• Reduce exposure to asthma triggers in apartment buildings
through environmental assessment, education, and remediation
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants that
results from burning fossil fuels
• Lower residents’ monthly energy bills by performing energy and
water conservation upgrades alongside the health-related
remediation efforts
• Help residents build community power and leadership through
tenant organizing and training about the social determinants of
health
• Create jobs and wealth in the community by contracting with
Bronx-based construction firms and holding contractors to high-
road community workforce standards and ecologically
sustainable practices

5. Guiding Principles
• Asset-based Approach
• Building of Mutually Beneficial Relationships
• Collective Decision-Making
• Community Organization as Lead
• Community Members at the Center of Decision-
Making

6. Community at the Center of
Decision-Making: Investing in
Leadership Development
• Organizing and Health Justice Campaign
Development
• Social Determinants of Health Trainings
• Community Health Planning
• Community Research

7. Challenges/Key Takeaways
• Aligning Shared Interests
• Overcoming Power Differentials
• Investing in Relationship Building

8. Bronx Healthy Buildings Program
Partners
• Montefiore Medical Center
• NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative
• Emerald Cities Collaborative
• MIT Community Innovators Lab
• Councilmember Ritchie Torres, Bronx District 15
• New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
• Enterprise Community Partners
• a.i.r. bronx
• NYC Department of Housing Preservation and
Development