The Sixteenth Street Community Health Center’s Department of Environmental Health (DEH) started working on environmental health initiatives in 1993.  The Department has supported the agency’s mission by providing clinic patients and community members with useful information and action steps that they can take to minimize or eliminate health risks from exposure to urban environmental hazards that exist in their neighborhoods.

The Department also works with a wide array of public, private and nonprofit sector partners to identify abandoned or contaminated properties on Milwaukee’s south side and through those partnerships, seek to restore and attract new development that brings good family supporting jobs to the neighborhoods served by the agency.

The Department’s success depends on establishing strong relationships with residents and community stakeholders, developing culturally and linguistically appropriate educational materials, and maintaining the flexibility needed to meet the individual needs of the families that it serves.

Currently, the Department of Environmental Health works in three core program areas:
 

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention

Sustainable Community Development

Water Resource Policy

Many of the projects run by the Department of Environmental Health have been recognized locally and nationally as models of community-based initiatives that combine environmental and economic improvements that result in healthier families and neighborhoods.