Environmental Justice Begins at Home: A Case Example of a Housing-Focused University-Community Partnership

Overview: University-community partnerships offer strategic opportunities for schools of social work to engage in efforts to address environmental justice issues. This electronic poster uses a case study example to explore how re-envisioning environmental injustice as a community-based concern led to the creation of a collaborative to dismantle barriers to housingProposal text: For nearly three-quarters of a century, the global community has recognized that housing represents a basic human right. Indeed, in 1948, the United Nations explicitly endorsed this belief in its seminal publication entitled Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since its inception, the social work profession has echoed the sentiment that housing plays a pivotal role in securing people’s social welfare. Yet, the phenomenon of “environmental justice” represents a fairly recent construct in social work history. For example, it was not until the year 2015 that the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) launched its Committee on Environmental Justice. One of the biggest challenges undertaken by that committee was to develop an operational definition of the term “environmental justice” and incorporate that definition into the 2015 EPAS. In 2020, CSWE re-envisioned the construct when it published its Curricular Guide for Environmental Justice.

According to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) “this year’s [APM] theme invites us to address human rights that belong to every human being both in the United States and around the world including freedom of speech, privacy, health care, life, liberty, and security, as well as an adequate standard of living including access to housing and a living wage” (CSWE, 2022). Additionally, this year’s APM “builds on the theme of the 2021 APM, which focused on racial, economic, and environmental justice” (CSWE, 2022). This electronic poster embraces the convergence of these themes, expands upon CSWE’s vision of “housing as a human right” (CSWE, 2022), and posits that housing serves as a core facet of environmental justice. Additionally, this poster examines the pivotal role that university-community partnerships play in efforts to enact environmental justice efforts.

Even though the National Association of Social Workers identifies environmental justice as a “social justice priority,” the social work profession as a whole continues to struggle with a myopic view of “environmental justice” (NASW, 2022). This poster expands the construct of environmental justice far beyond the typical confines of “climate change” and promotes the tenet that environmental justice “begins at home.” Utilizing a case study example, this electronic poster examines the efforts of social work faculty, at a mid-western university, to address environmental injustice through implementation of an innovative program focused on removing barriers to housing that people most often face as they leave systems of care (e.g., foster care, juvenile detention, jail or prison). This poster explores the role that “community” plays in either perpetuating or dismantling environmental injustice. In turn, the case study offers a glimpse into ways to strategically leverage university-community partnerships when working for environmental justice. This poster explores the value that university-community partnerships offer to schools of social work, their respective universities, and communities at large—with specific attention to engaging in endeavors related to working to create a more environmentally- just world. Through case examples, the presenters will reflect on how these initiatives create unique ways to answer the profession’s call to work for environmental justice.