Housing Is Health: Why Where You Live Shapes Your Well-Being | Amal Barre

What does housing have to do with health? According to urban planner and housing researcher Amal Barre, nearly everything. Amal joins Corey Dion Lewis on the Move the City FWD Podcast to discuss why affordable, accessible, stable, and quality housing should be understood as a basic human right and a major driver of health. She explains how housing connects to healthcare, employment, education, transportation, neighborhood design, and economic mobility. The conversation also explores why healthcare, housing, planning, and social services cannot continue operating in silos. Amal shares how professionals can build relationships in unexpected places, strengthen community referral networks, and create partnerships that address the conditions affecting people's lives outside the clinic. Amal also shares how her early work with families navigating homelessness shaped her approach to planning and housing advocacy. That experience showed her how much time, effort, and energy people can spend navigating fragmented systems just to access basic services. Amal Barre will be a panelist for Housing Is Medicine at the 2026 My City My Health Conference in Des Moines on November 13. Learn more and register at mycity.health. Chapters 00:00 – Welcome to the Move the City FWD Podcast 01:32 – Meet Amal Barre 02:37 – Storytelling as a Tool for Advocacy 04:33 – Housing as a Basic Human Right 06:56 – Why Housing Is Health 09:03 – Privilege, Distance and “Othering” 12:38 – What Healthcare Professionals Can Do About Housing 14:59 – Building Better Community Referral Networks 17:08 – Moving Beyond the Homeless Shelter Referral 19:12 – How Amal Got Into Housing Work 21:37 – What Working With Families Experiencing Homelessness Taught Her 23:58 – How the Built Environment Shapes Opportunity 26:55 – Why Different Perspectives Matter in Urban Planning 29:22 – Breaking Down Silos Between Housing, Planning and Social Services 32:18 – What Amal Wants Conference Attendees to Take Away 34:09 – Returning Home and Reconnecting With Community 34:50 – Closing