ALEXANDRIA, VA-A healthy Alexandria starts at home. That is the motto of the city’s Healthy Homes Initiative, an effort to ensure all Alexandrians have healthy and safe, hazard-free housing. Alexandria issued and implemented its first action plan in 2022 before releasing a new plan earlier this year.
Natalie Talis, Population Health Manager with the Alexandria Health Department (AHD), leads the agency’s involvement in the Healthy Homes Network. She recently spoke with The Zebra via email about priority areas and successes to date. Below is our conversation, edited for clarity.
Zebra: Can you provide a little background on how the Healthy Homes program started?
Natalie Talis: Alexandria organizations have been trying to improve home conditions for decades, but the same issues like mold, pests, and smoke continue to harm residents’ physical and mental health. In 2019, Alexandrians voted to include a healthy home initiative in the City’s Community Health Improvement Plan 2025. After researching existing policies and services in our city, Alexandria released its first Healthy Homes Action Plan in 2022.
Zebra: How does the program work in addressing its priority areas and strategies?
Natalie Talis: The new Healthy Homes Action Plan is made of strategies designed by and for residents. In 2023, Alexandrians voted on our top home issues in a city-wide survey. These became the priorities for our work. Then, the Healthy Homes Network hosted community conversations where residents shared their experiences with the issues and brainstormed practical strategies that the Network could use to address them.
Now, the nearly 30 organizations in the Healthy Homes Network are forming workgroups to carry out the strategies. Workgroups will expand current projects or take on new projects in line with the resident-designed strategies so that we’re focusing on what’s most important for our community.
Zebra: What are some of the successes to date?
Natalie Talis: The first Action Plan came out in 2022, and it set the foundation for healthy homes work. We achieved all the goals in that plan: we formed a Healthy Homes Network, updated our listings of existing services, and worked with residents to identify the city’s top home condition challenges and potential solutions.
More importantly, we’re already starting to see how improved coordination on this topic is changing people’s lives. For example, the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority collaborated with the Virginia Cooperative Extension to make unit upgrades that save on energy, such as insulation, lightbulbs, and door sweeps. That means lower utility bills. AHD partnered with Rebuilding Together to tear away walls of mold in Alexandrians’ homes and build newer, safer places to live. There are countless stories of changes happening in our community. But we need to do more.
Zebra: How does the 2025 plan build on previous efforts?
Natalie Talis: What’s exciting about the 2025 Healthy Homes Action Plan is that we aren’t starting from scratch. By co-designing strategies with residents who encounter home condition issues every day, the Healthy Homes Network was able to uplift what’s currently working and identify what’s not.
For example, the resident-designed strategy to tackle mold in Alexandria doesn’t involve creating entirely new programs and projects to address mold. Instead, residents wanted an easier way to find and use mold remediation resources that already exist and have that guidance on what steps to take and when.
Zebra: If someone wants to work with the city in terms of making their home healthier or volunteering their services, what should they do?
Natalie Talis: Everyone has a role in making our community healthier, and that includes having safe, hazard-free homes. As we implement the strategies in this plan, we’ll need resident feedback along the way to make sure we’re getting it right. That accountability to the people who are most impacted is the only way this can work. You can sign up for our community health email list (at www.tinyurl.com/HealthyHomesALX ) for updates on how to get involved in these projects.
If you’re dealing with a home condition issue right now, get help through Alex311 and teach your neighbors to do the same. Alex311 experts will help connect you to city services and resources.
Zebra: This has been great. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Natalie Talis: To achieve healthier homes in Alexandria, we have to think beyond the four walls of any one house, apartment, or condo. Working together – with our neighbors, our property managers, our city service providers – is essential to creating the environments and systems we all need to thrive.
Please join us in sharing the Healthy Homes Action Plan with other people in your community so that we can all get involved to make Alexandria a healthier place to live.
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