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Mold, Pests, and Smoke: Here’s how the Healthy Homes Action Plan aims to create healthier homes in Alexandria

Alexandria’s Healthy Homes Network has unveiled a new action plan to tackle the city’s top home condition issues. The plan addresses problems like mold, smoke, pests, and hoarding.

This comprehensive strategy results from extensive community input, including a 2023 survey and nine focus groups where residents shared their experiences and proposed solutions. The Healthy Homes Network, a coalition of nearly 30 organizations and city agencies, used this feedback to develop five key strategies:

– Improving access to mold identification and remediation resources
– Addressing mental health factors that contribute to extreme clutter or hoarding
– Creating and implementing non-smoking measures for residential buildings
– Developing data-driven pest control methods
– Partnering with Alex311 to streamline home condition reporting

The action plan includes success benchmarks for each strategy, along with resident stories and data visualizations that illustrate the current state of healthy homes in Alexandria.

Residents can find an interactive version of the plan and brief multilingual explainer videos below and on the Healthy Homes website. The Network is forming workgroups to address each priority area, setting milestones to track progress. They’ll share updates and new data through the interactive plan.

Alexandria residents are encouraged to review the plan, sign up for updates, check their property for lead pipes, and use Alex311 to report any home health issues.

Healthy Homes Action Plan 2025

About the Author

  • Ryan Belmore is a journalist based in Alexandria, Virginia. He served as Publisher of ALXnow from March to October 2025. He can be reached at [email protected].