ABH Guest Post: Kimberly Clinch + Cooperative Community Housing
A Physician Organizer Moving at the Pace of Trust
Kimberly Clinch, MS2
2024-25 Public Health Advocacy Fellow
I am honored to be an Advocates for Better Health Public Health Advocacy Fellow. I applied to be a Fellow to address issues of housing.
Our society's current housing model has a well-known issue of not providing everyone with housing. Based on my experiences as a coordinator for the Mobile Health Initiative and in clinics as a medical student, I also believe that our current housing does not serve those of us who are housed: instead, it underpins the interrelated issues of widespread loneliness, parental stress, and isolation of elders. Thus, as a Fellow, I aimed to learn more about developing affordable community housing.
Going into this work, I expected to do meaningful, community-led work. The lessons learned and connections made still caught me off guard in the how they've transformed me. As a former national political field director, most advocacy and communication workshops I attend feel like a review--to boot, a review of lessons that I once taught myself. Instead, ABH workshops have been rich in new and powerful ideas. In connecting with a mentor, I expected someone who would hold me accountable to project management. Instead, my mentor, Dr. Aarti Bhatt, has held me accountable to slowing down, moving at the pace of trust, and moving at the pace of embodiment and creative expression. Through our conversations, I've recognized the insidious ways I fall into the assumption that healthcare knows best even when I think I'm not.
Through attending a production of zAmya (the theater company she partners with, in which all actors are unhoused), I was humbled to discover how much I still didn't know or understand even after months of working with others to create better housing. Because of these experiences, I am now even more mindful about turning over decision-making to the people I am "serving" whether in organizing spaces or in clinic. Not only for the importance of agency, but because it truly leads to better solutions.
While I've had, and surely still have, lots to learn, I have increasingly been able to contribute to these spaces and missions. Early in my fellowship, I connected with Gertrude Brown Community Land Trust (GBCLT), an organization developing cooperative community housing to be owned by people currently experiencing houselessness. I was excited to join this team to get hands-on experience developing housing. My background as a political organizer has proved useful in meetings with the City of Minneapolis. My experience, skills, and connections in the cooperative and research ecosystems are also proving valuable. I am now exploring a community-research collaboration with Dr. Bhatt and zAmya to find out what model of housing (both physically and in terms of governance and finance) people who are currently unhoused would like to move into. All around, my ABH experience has surpassed my expectations for how formative it would be in shaping my path and the kind of physician organizer I aspire to be.