Almost a quarter of children in one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods have asthma. That’s about twice the national average. A hospital there is taking a novel approach to the problem. It’s pressuring some landlords to clean up conditions that can trigger asthma. The story helped expose poor housing conditions in the city, links from those conditions to childhood asthma, the responsibility of landlords, the challenge for landlords to improve conditions when a tenant isn’t paying rent, and the hospital’s novel effort to pressure the landlords and raise awareness about what landlords and tenants can do.
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