American Medical Association Addresses Fair Housing and Chronic Homelessness

Delegates at the 2018 American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting in Chicago adopted several policies intended to alleviate racial housing segregation and chronic homelessness.

With the aim of addressing racial housing segregation as an amplifier of health disparities, delegates adopted a policy stating that the AMA:

  • Opposes policies that enable racial housing segregation.
  • Advocates continued federal funding of publicly-accessible geospatial data on community racial and economic disparities and disparities in access to affordable housing, employment, education, and health care, including but not limited to HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing tool.

In an effort to alleviate chronic homelessness, AMA’s existing policy was amended, calling on the AMA to recognize that stable, affordable housing as a first priority, without mandated therapy or service compliance, is effective in improving housing stability and quality of life among individuals who are chronically homeless.

The policy changes reported in the June 15, 2018 AMA Wire are available at: https://bit.ly/2APi5wf