Green Housing and Climate Change
May 6, 2009
By Enterprise Community Partners
Green methods and materials are becoming more common in the development, rehabilitation and management of affordable housing across the country. Green homes have features that can benefit low income people and communities, by improving energy and water efficiency of the home, enhancing the health of its residents, and mitigating the property’s environmental impacts in construction and operation. On the other hand, affordable housing advocates are concerned about the effects that any increase in utility costs resulting from climate change legislation will have on low income families’ budgets.
In 2009, Congress will consider a number of bills designed to address the related concerns of climate change and energy efficiency. These bills provide opportunities to expand federal funding for energy efficiency improvements and to provide utility cost relief to lower income households.
The Issue
In the last few years, thousands of green homes have been built and rehabilitated for low income people across the United States. These include new construction and rehabilitation projects, rental as well as owner-occupied properties, large urban developments and small rural projects. There are many green developments with supportive services for residents with special needs and a growing number of green preservation projects. Increasingly green and affordable are becoming one and the same.
Green is a holistic concept, encompassing more than a single building feature, and includes both site and location features (such as compact development, walkability and transit access) as well as building elements (including energy efficient systems, water conserving fixtures, healthy and recycled materials and features to improve indoor air quality). There a several national programs and dozens more at the local level that provide criteria for defining green homes. Among the frameworks widely in use in affordable housing are the Green Communities Criteria, the U.S Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes rating system, Green Point Rated, and Southface’s EarthCraft House program. These and most other green frameworks have a great deal in common. Ultimately, going green is not about complying with a checklist of green items , but designing and integrating a set of improvements into a site and building that achieve the maximum desired green goals of a project.
Benefits to low income people and communities. An emerging body of research and experience on the ground suggests that green homes can create healthier living environments for low income families, who disproportionately suffer from asthma and other health problems exacerbated by poor indoor air quality.
Green affordable homes also can reduce operating expenses, cutting utility costs for residents and boosting building reserves for owners. For example, an Ohio program to create 150 Habitat for Humanity homes achieving Energy Star certification generated an average annual savings of $460.
For multifamily apartment owners, more energy-efficient buildings may generate more stable cash flow from rents. To the extent energy improvements were part of more holistic green building rehabilitations, rental properties may be more durable and higher performing and potentially more valuable assets to own over the long term.
In addition, studies of home weatherization and retrofit programs have catalogued broader benefits beyond energy savings, including greater comfort, convenience, health, safety and noise reduction. These ‘non-energy benefits’ have been broadly estimated to be worth 50% to 300% of annual household energy bill savings.
Green affordable housing at scale also can help fight climate change. Residential units consume 22% of the nation’s energy and cause 20% of our greenhouse gas emissions.
One recent analysis suggests that the 34 million households eligible for federal home energy assistance generated 276 million tons of CO2 emissions, 27.5% of total emissions from residential units overall. Another study found that weatherizing 12,000 homes in Ohio avoided more than 100,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 24,000 tons of CO2, while cutting average utility costs for low income homeowners by an average of several hundred dollars per year.
In addition, increasing energy efficiency in very low income homes attacks a significant contributor of greenhouse gas emission in the United States, residential homes, at the root of the problem: the buildings themselves. And it reduces emissions for the long term while reducing energy costs. Other approaches to ensuring equity in climate change policy, such as helping low income people afford higher energy costs, while critically important, do not deliver these enduring systemic benefits.
Energy efficiency and broader green home rehabilitation and new construction can be an especially promising basis for creating good ‘green collar’ jobs for very low income people. A recent study identified 22 different job sectors of the U.S economy that currently provide workers with green collar jobs, of which 11 were directly related to green home rehabilitation, including several specifically tied to energy efficiency. Increased investment in green very low income home rehabilitation could create these jobs at scale. The Department of Energy estimates that every $1 million invested in weatherization programs creates 52 low income community jobs.
Green jobs associated with very low income housing also can be created outside the construction trades in the areas of home energy audits, inspections and building performance testing. And as innovation and public policies accelerate market penetration of renewable energy technologies, additional opportunities should emerge to create more green jobs and deliver the energy and environmental benefits of clean energy to low income people through energy-efficient home construction and rehabilitation.
Costs to low income people and communities. Some of the proposals included in proposed climate change legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would increase the costs of energy by charging polluters for the right to pollute. There are a variety of alternative mechanisms for achieving this goal – including a carbon tax and a carbon offset market – but ultimately, they would have the same disproportionate impact on families with low incomes through higher energy, food and transportation costs. To address this problem, some are advocating for the inclusion of additional funds for Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) or other comparable programs, as well as reductions in the taxes charged to low income families.
Cost effectiveness of green affordable housing. An analysis of 16 green affordable housing projects completed in 2005 found an average cost increase as a result of the green features of 2.4%. Forthcoming research by Enterprise Community Partners analyzing more than 40 green affordable developments built more recently to the Green Communities Criteria contains similar findings: marginally higher developments costs – as well as significant energy and water savings and reduced carbon emissions.
In very general terms, it is safe to say that many kinds of green methods and materials cost nothing additional to implement. Upfront design and building analysis and measures to make buildings significantly more energy efficient, such as through more effective building envelopes, right-sized systems and newer technologies, may have higher costs for affordable housing developers and owners, especially in rehabilitation developments. In less urban communities, density and walkability measures may lead to higher costs.
Research in other building sectors and anecdotal experience in affordable housing suggests that green development costs decrease as developers gain education, assistance and experience.
Federal Legislation
In the 111th Congress, there are several bills affecting climate change and other green/affordable housing issues of which advocates should be aware.
The GREEN Act. In 2008 the House of Representatives passed the Green Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods Act (H.R. 6899), sponsored by Representative Ed Perlmutter.
The GREEN Act’s major provisions would:
1) Increase green building and energy efficiency requirements in federally assisted housing;
2) Authorize block grants, loan funds and rental subsidies for green residential development and rehabilitation;
3) Encourage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to finance more energy efficient mortgages;
4) Direct the Federal Housing Administration to insure $1 billion worth of energy efficient homes; and
5) Provide resources for community-based organizations to create green affordable developments.
Climate change legislation. In 2009, Congress is likely to take up climate change legislation, which could provide an opportunity to secure additional funding to augment energy-efficiency funding provided in the economic recovery package, and help low and moderate income families weather the utility price increases that will result from climate change legislation.
In particular, there is a need for legislative action to provide funding and financing that will address gaps in the web of programs authorized by the 2009 economic recovery act (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; ARRA) to help improve the energy-efficiency of older homes. Despite these large allocations, a number of important gaps remain, including and especially to assist renters of privately owned assisted housing (the bill included only $250 million for improvements to this stock, far less than is needed), families with housing vouchers (no provisions were included in the act), and moderate income families living in private-market rental housing (no provisions).
Other related issues. The federal weatherization program and federal transportation spending also each have a major impact on climate change and other green issues. Advocates are encouraged to consult the separate chapters on those issues.
What to Say to Legislators
Members of Congress should be encouraged to:
Support the GREEN Act to, among other things, increase green building and energy efficiency requirements in federally assisted housing.
Ensure investments in green affordable homes are a priority in energy and climate change policy. Include provisions in any legislation to help low and moderate income families deal with the higher costs for energy, food and other energy-intensive goods that will likely result.
Work to ensure that new housing is built to a higher standard of energy-efficiency, but also be attuned to the increased costs for housing that may result.
Secure funding for affordable homes near transit in the transportation bill.
Reach out to environmental, energy and transit advocates tot find common ground to create a stronger progressive coalition for green communities for all.
State and local representatives should be encouraged to:
Develop a comprehensive approach to meeting the energy-retrofit needs of low- and moderate income families. The weatherization funding in the economic recovery package is extremely important, but to spend it quickly and effectively, states should partner with owners of privately owned assisted housing as well as non-profits working at the local level.
For More Information
Enterprise Community Partners • www.enterprisecommunity.org
Global Green USA • www.globalgreen.org
