Enterprise Community Partners is first affordable housing organization to join Well Living Lab Alliance
National affordable housing provider and advocate will advance work to promote indoor health and well-being
ROCHESTER, MN – July 12, 2021 – Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) announced today that it has become the first affordable housing organization to join the Well Living Lab Alliance, a global network of organizations committed to improving human health and well-being in indoor environments.
The Well Living Lab, founded as a collaboration of Delos and Mayo Clinic, combines the expertise of building, health and behavioral sciences to conduct human subject studies in simulated and real-world settings. Since opening its facility adjacent to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in 2016, the Lab has conducted 20 studies, with several more currently underway.
“Enterprise and the Well Living Lab are an ideal match. We share the same commitment to promote health and well-being: Enterprise with our deep experience designing, advocating for and operating green affordable homes and the Lab with its groundbreaking research to improve indoor environments,” said Priscilla Almodovar, president and chief executive officer, Enterprise. “We are honored to join the other members of the Alliance to bring the ideas, innovations and possibilities of the Lab to scale across the globe.”
Enterprise brings to the Alliance significant experience working to improve health and wellness in affordable housing. In 2005, Enterprise created the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, the first national standard for green affordable housing. Today, 27 states and Washington D.C. require that affordable housing developments receiving public funds comply with the Criteria. Since 2020, Enterprise has partnered with the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), a Well Living Lab Alliance member, to enable developers to jointly certify buildings to WELL and Enterprise Green Communities standards. In addition to its work nationwide to scale innovative programs, invest in affordable homes and advocate for good public policy, Enterprise owns and operates 13,000 affordable homes and provides resident services for 22,000 people.
“The Well Living Lab is delighted to have Enterprise join the Alliance,” said Barbara Spurrier, executive director, Well Living Lab, and executive vice president, Delos. “Enterprise’s commitment to affordable housing and housing-based research to ensure the health and well-being of its residents aligns directly with the work of the Well Living Lab. We look forward to exploring opportunities to conduct field-based research to advance our respective missions together.”
As a Well Living Lab Alliance member, Enterprise will join nearly two dozen other organizations committed to improving indoor environments to benefit residents, including: Essentia, HB Reavis, Hines, HKS, HOK, IBM, IWBI, Milliken, Panasonic, Sino-Ocean Group, Structure Tone, 3M, Ford Motor Company, Harrison Street, Johnson Controls, KB Home, Noaber Foundation, RMZ Corp, Shimizu Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, and Withings.
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About the Well Living Lab
The Well Living Lab, founded as a collaboration of Delos and Mayo Clinic, is dedicated to identifying how indoor environments impact human health and well-being. It conducts scientific research with human subjects in a simulated real-world environment and shares practical findings that can be applied to improving indoor spaces where people spent approximately 90 percent of their time. The lab has 5,500 square-feet of sensor-rich, reconfigurable space in downtown Rochester, Minnesota. Learn more at welllivinglab.com.
About Enterprise Community Partners
Enterprise is a national nonprofit on a mission to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging for all. To make that possible, we operate the only organization designed to address America's affordable housing crisis from every angle: we develop and deploy programs and support community organizations on the ground; we advocate for policy on a nonpartisan basis at every level of government; we invest capital to build and preserve rental homes people can afford; and we own, operate and provide resident services for affordable communities. All so that people not only make rent, they build futures. With this end-to-end approach, 40 years of experience and thousands of local partners, Enterprise has built and preserved 793,000 homes, invested $61 billion in communities and changed millions of lives. Learn more at EnterpriseCommunity.org.