MONTEREY, California (February 19, 2020) – Over the past decade we have created a revolutionary tool to understand the health impacts of housing. A decade of work has allowed us the unique clarity to demystify the process of solving the military housing problem. Using Hayward Score we have measured the impacts of military housing on readiness, retention and family health, and we have developed a comprehensive plan to fix military housing problem within Five Years. The plan is called REHOME. We estimate this to cost $5 Billion. Last week, we presented REHOME to House Armed Services Committee HASC and Senate Armed Services Committee SASC as well as many of the members of Congress and Senate who sit on the committees. We also presented it to military command in the Pentagon. The reception has been quite good. Everyone wants to solve the issue and turn housing into a strategic advantage for the joint forces. – Bill Hayward, CEO
Military housing is at a critical juncture. The historically developed housing technology didn’t consider the needs or health of occupants much beyond basic survival. While much current technology is focused on reducing or removing harm to the occupants, it is inconsistently applied. A path forward to a new era of military housing, one that is focused on supporting occupant health, and ultimately improving essential measures of readiness and cognitive function, is possible. But this critical shift can only occur when a fundamental change in how we think about homes and their relation to people is integrated into otherwise incremental construction practices.
It is wrong to assume that homes are inert physical structures and thus don’t impact occupants. In fact, occupants are biologically dynamic organisms within a physical structure that is both biologically and chemically active. The complexity of the resulting interrelationships is beyond the conceptual capabilities of current methods. But they do appear to fit comfortably within the formalism of Systems Theory guiding Systems Engineering.
There are two conceptual changes required to make this shift in thinking. First, accepting houses as systems requires more than an acknowledgement of what those systems are. It means taking the next step to identify and describe how those systems influence each other. Second, accepting people as biological organisms rather than unaffected occupants requires more than a quick nod that, of course, we are alive. It means taking the next step to understand that houses affect us and we likewise affect our houses. In other words, the relationships among and between the systems of a house includes people.
Current practices and policies have failed to develop houses that support human health, because fundamentally they exclude consideration of biology, particularly the interrelationships between people and the multitude of elements that influence the indoor environment. Ample scientific research supports a deepening understanding of the health consequences of those relationships and provides a robust framework, grounded in systems theory, to move forward and improve outcomes.
Bold leadership can drive change. Acknowledging the connection between houses and people leads to a shift in the actions that get taken to build, repair, maintain, and live in homes. When those actions shift in concert with each other and occupant heath is an objective rather than an afterthought a new era of housing is possible.
For more info visit Hayward Healthy Home and haywardscore.com.
