The link between health and housing is vital — as stable, safe living conditions directly impact our quality of life and our communities. Many multifamily property owners are going even further by integrating health and wellness features into their properties to advance tenant opportunity and well-being.  

Types of Health and Wellness Services

Property owners can leverage a variety of services — often in partnership with local organizations — to support the health and well-being of tenants. Here are some successful examples:

  • General Well-being Services: In some cases, multifamily developments are purpose-built to include health care. In other cases, operators partner with a nonprofit organization, for example, Rainbow Housing Assistance Corporation, that provides service-enriched housing programs for residents of rental housing communities. These resources focus on the community, promote the self-sufficiency of the residents, and have been shown to increase the financial strength of multifamily assets. 
  • Telehealth: Many multifamily operators are working to provide telehealth resources to tenants who may lack access to medical services. Comunidad Partners, a Freddie Mac 2024 Impact Sponsor, partnered to provide a virtual health care program for multifamily communities — its partnership with Veritas Impact Partners, a nonprofit service provider for cost-burdened residents, enabled their access to free telehealth services through a telehealth contract with a Fortune 500 health care provider. 
  • Aging in place: With our aging population, accommodations to improve the health and well-being of seniors are especially important. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's guide for Helping Older Adults Age Safely in Place includes a list of low-cost modifications multifamily owners can implement to help residents continue to live independently.
  • Classes and Activities: Fostering a healthy lifestyle for residents can make a lasting impact — whether it’s by hosting a community cooking class, organizing events like “Tuesday Night Basketball” or “Friday Morning Water Aerobics,” offering athletic training, or providing resources on nutritional programs.

Certification Programs

Beyond health services, several organizations are working to encourage best practices and set industry standards for housing — to create a healthy living environment:

  • Enterprise Green Communities (EGC)’s Healthy Living Environment criteria emphasize healthy conditions at the property.
  • WELL Building Standard offers 10 concepts and 108 features to foster real estate innovation in health and well-being.
  • Fitwel provides a global building certification standard to optimize occupant health and productivity.
  • The Multifamily Impact Council’s framework includes health and wellness criteria on building design and property management practices that protect and improve the health of renters.

We encourage multifamily owners and operators to engage with their partners, local governments and communities to explore wellness resources available for residents. Housing can be more than four walls and a roof — it can also be a place that improves the quality of renters’ lives too.

Discover more ways to support renters.