This is Part 2 in a 3-part series about indoor air quality.
Read part 1, about indoor air quality in schools.
Read part 3, about the people working on systemic solutions to poor indoor air quality, here.
Brooke Petry was a new parent when she moved into a carpeted apartment in Philadelphia around 2010. Her baby, then 18 months, had asthma, and so did Petry. Still, it took almost six years for Petry to connect their asthmatic symptoms with their living situation. It wasn’t until her pulmonologist asked if she was staying in an old apartment—one with carpeting, moisture in the basement, or mold—that she realized her indoor air quality was likely connected to her family’s health scares.
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Still, with limited housing options available in their city, they stayed put for six years. Once they moved to a new apartment with hardwood floors, Petry’s asthma got better, and her child had less frequent need for an inhaler.
“As a lower income renter in a city with a lack of affordable rental properties, especially a lack of well-kept rentals, it makes it tough,” said Petry. In Pennsylvania, one in four voters lives in a home requiring a critical repair, and one in three can’t afford their utility bills.
A few years ago, the Pennsylvania legislature created the Whole Home Repairs Program using funds from the American Rescue Plan, federal legislation passed to assist communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the statewide program was to provide funding for home repairs and weatherization with grants for lower-income homeowners and forgivable loans for small landlords who agreed to keep their rents affordable. Now, as a new homeowner, Petry, Moms’ Pennsylvania Field Organizer, advocates for programs like this one. She knows it would have made it easier for her family to maintain a healthy home environment back in the day.
In Petry’s city, an organization called Rebuilding Together Philadelphia now has an Asthma Trigger Reduction Program, in partnership with a local hospital, to specifically help kids suffering from this chronic condition. Roughly one in five Philadelphia kids have asthma. If a child has a certain amount of emergency room visits from asthma over a set period, the hospital can flag it, and the family can get help that improves indoor air quality, including new carpets and weatherization assistance.
“Pennsylvania has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation, and these indoor air quality issues are a huge problem,” said Petry. With over 50% of folks in Philly being renters, incentivizing landlords to weatherize homes with forgivable loans is vitally important.
“Imagine how life-changing that would have been? In my situation, if I told my landlord, ‘We think we have a problem,’ and asked him to spend money, he’d think we were a problem,” lamented Petry. But with today’s available funding, her family could have suggested a financially friendly solution for the landlord.
But that was then. Petry’s child is now a teen—15—and now, as a family that owns a home, they can make everyday decisions to improve their health and lower the risk of asthma triggers and symptoms. This spring, while the seasonal temperature rose in Philadelphia, they were able to calculate what windows to open in which parts of the house to avoid heat and humidity, as both worsen asthma symptoms. Being in control of home air flow also meant Petry could avoid inviting in allergens and particulate matter from a construction site nearby.
Petry does worry about bringing outdoor air into her indoor space, especially after Philadelphia got a failing grade on particle pollution in the American Lung Association’s 2024 “State of the Air” report. At home, she cranks an air purifier and makes sure to replace the filter in her HVAC system on a schedule with the highest-quality one recommended. She also clears dust from her ceiling fans before turning them on, and in the basement, she permanently runs a dehumidifier to avoid moisture lingering and breeding mold.
Individual steps to reduce indoor air pollution at home are good common practice. Still, Petry said the biggest changes she can make to improve indoor air quality at home happen outside her own house. These are big-picture changes like advocating to reduce pollution and mitigate climate change.
“All this extra water [from more frequent and intense rainfall and flooding caused by climate change] is causing homes to have issues that’re bad for indoor air quality,” said Petry. “Home repair under climate change is so important when it comes to indoor air quality. It’s all connected.”
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