Under POAH’s trauma-informed framework, affordable housing providers engage residents in the design of supportive resident services, amenities, and service-coordination approaches. Enabling residents to participate in advisory boards and programming decisions around service provision can help to ensure that the services provided reflect the unique needs of each resident community and are delivered and offered in a way that is accessible and healing for residents. For example, POAH hosted a feedback session with a multigenerational team of resident leaders at one of their properties to discuss plans for the community’s basketball court. Together, staff and residents decided to keep the current location of the court and upgrade the space in ways that were most useful to residents. POAH’s trauma-informed toolkit provides detailed instructions for how affordable housing providers can lead a codesign process in their communities to improve resident services. POAH emphasizes that compensating residents for sharing their ideas and feedback is an essential aspect of this equitable approach to community engagement.
