Renaissance supported the development and implementation of Healthy Places for Healthy People (HP2) technical assistance program, using a highly successful model initially development for EPA’s Local Foods, Local Places (LFLP) program. HP2 furthers EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment by helping communities identify and implement smart growth strategies improving public health outcomes. The program’s cornerstones are supporting active living in the built environment and working with community health care providers who can help catalyze holistic community and economic development.

Each community selected by EPA staff to receive the Healthy Places for Healthy People technical assistance participates in a two-day workshop. Renaissance staff worked closely with residents and local stakeholders, creating a short-term action plan designed to achieve the community’s health and place-based goals. The 2017 pilot round of HP2 communities included Montgomery and Smithers, West Virginia; Nogales, Arizona; Waterville, Maine.

Later in 2017, Renaissance led a second round of the Healthy Places for Healthy People program, facilitating assistance in another seven communities: Anderson, Indiana; Bangor, Maine; Powell County, Kentucky; Greensboro, Alabama; Los Angeles, California; Monett, Missouri; Port Townsend, Washington. In 2018, the team brought Round 3 of HP2 to five communities including Bunkie, Louisiana; Livingston, Alabama; Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana; Wenatchee, Washington; and Weldon, North Carolina. Supplementing the technical assistance delivered this round is a short video developed and produced by Renaissance, highlighting the Healthy Places for Healthy People workshop in Livingston, Alabama.

Renaissance has shared the story of the Healthy Places for Healthy People program on several national platforms, including a webinar for the Maryland Department of Planning’s Smart Growth Network and two conference sessions at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference (NPC) in 2018 and 2019.

Healthy Places for Healthy People communities have also been successful at leveraging the assistance received through this EPA program into other opportunities. In Montgomery and Smithers, West Virginia, the Fayette County Diabetes Coalition was selected as a member of the 2018 National Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health cohort. The Diabetes Coalition believes that a large part of their success is based on the Healthy Places for Healthy People workshop and resulting Community Action Plan. In 2018, it was announced that Waterville, Maine – a pilot Healthy Places for Healthy People community – received a $7.37 million federal BUILD grant to change the traffic patterns downtown from one-way to two-way, improve intersections, update sidewalks, do plantings, install benches and complete the RiverWalk at Head of Falls. These walkability improvements were central to Waterville’s HP2 Community Action Plan. And through coordination with EPA’s College/Underserved Community Partnership Program (CUPP) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA Department of Commerce), 2018 HP2 community Livingston, Alabama participated in the Rural Broadband Strategies national pilot course, an experiential learning course that trains graduate and undergraduate work study students to bring broadband to communities that cannot afford to hire broadband experts.