Why Are Babies Sleeping With Their Parents? Sorry, Your Answer Is Wrong

adult and baby sleeping togetehr
This scene was created by affordablehousingaction.org and is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Tenants at the Clinton-Peabody Public Housing Project in St. Louis, Missouri were called to a meeting to talk about premature deaths among infants. The people who organized the meeting were encouraging parents to stop sleeping with their infants. But the organizers were stopped in their tracks when one resident pointed out that they were sleeping with their children to protect them from the mice that were running rampant through their homes. Rather than pack up their displays and go away, the people who had called the meeting dug in to help.

The organizers were from a non-profit health organization called Generate Health. They used their connections to draw attention to the mouse infestation at Clinton-Peabody. Very slowly things began to change. Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars were eventually spent on repairs and extermination. The level of infestation is slowly going down.

One of the interesting things about this story is the way Generate Health shifted its decision making during this time. Generate Health staff initially consulted with Clinton-Peabody tenants about tactics and strategy. But they shifted to a decision making model where the tenants have the final say about what gets done in the ongoing campaign to make their homes habitable.

The article linked below also tracks the performance of the St. Louis Housing Authority in the project to rid Clinton-Peabody of mice. When approached by Generate Health, Housing Authority staff initially took the position that the issue was due to poor housekeeping and offered trainings to the residents on proper cleaning techniques. The Housing Authority also suggested bringing in feral cats to rout out the mice.

During Generate Health’s push to get rid of mice, the Housing Authority developed accountability mechanisms around complaints and repairs, so tenants can make and track complaints on line.

The Housing Authority has not gone as far as embracing tenant-led decision making. A multi-stakeholder steering committee investigating the future of Clinton-Peabody includes one tenant representative. And the non-profit developer leading the discussion about rebuilding vs renovating Clinton-Peabody was selected in part because it has a good reputation for tenant consultation.

People with experience of homelessness have valuable practical advice, but those of us with resources are much too slow when it comes to putting experience in the drivers’ seat. The rallying cry “nothing about us without us” exemplifies this gap. The St. Louis Housing Authority has moved toward “nothing about us without us,” but as the changes at Generate Health indicate, much more could be done.

Read more about the story of tenants at Clinton-Peabody in Shelterforce: The Real Reason Why Babies at a St. Louis Public Housing Complex Weren’t Sleeping on Their Own