Climate, Housing, Action: The Road Ahead

As the community development and affordable housing sectors navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, HPN’s Green & Healthy Communities (GHC) Initiative has taken stock of where we stand and how we are charting a path forward. We celebrate the steps we have taken to advance sustainability and resilience strategies and acknowledge that there is a long way to go.

The devastation wrought by climate-driven natural disasters experienced by communities across the country is a painful reminder that there are no “climate havens.” We know that low-wealth and historically underinvested communities often lack strategic investments in resilience and struggle the most to recover. There is an urgency to continue our work.

The federal government is attempting to freeze and end programs and resources designed to directly support the communities we serve; programs that will increase resilience to extreme weather, lower household energy costs, and support housing affordability. These efforts to roll back historic investments in energy independence and sustainable housing are occurring despite broad recognition that we face national crises in housing and energy affordability. If implemented, such programs are expected to accelerate best practices, mobilize tremendous resources – including private sector capital – and build sustainable markets to preserve and develop sustainable communities beyond the lifespan of the federal efforts.

Despite uncertainty, HPN’s GHC team remains committed to advancing pragmatic and ambitious solutions that address the intersecting challenges at hand.

HPN started what is now the Housing Sustainability Collaborative over two years ago. HPN members have long recognized that making affordable housing more energy efficient, resilient, and healthier for our climate and communities is just good business. We recognized that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, and specifically the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, presented a generational opportunity not only to advance energy efficiency and portfolio resilience but also to spur the production and preservation of affordable housing in a moment when our nation is experiencing a housing cost crisis. So, we did what HPN does best. We brought our members and sector partners together to craft solutions and develop strategies for how to put these resources to use.

Together, we identified needs and barriers to using IRA resources, prepared project pipelines for investment, and developed policy recommendations along with program and lending strategies to ensure that these resources would work for and benefit affordable housing and its residents.

With the support of funders like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, TD Charitable Foundation, and Invest in Our Future we engaged technical assistance providers through our “Readiness” program to develop project pipelines, help prepare our members for how to identify the opportunities in their housing and lending portfolios, and devise strategies to execute on these opportunities. These engagements are not only preparing our members but will benefit the entire affordable housing sector with tools and best practices field-tested by HPN members.

The IRA added urgency and critical resources to support green investments in housing, but the need and opportunity for our communities and organizations were here before, and it remains.

As HPN looks forward, we plan to focus on continued pipeline development, capital matching, and advocating for federal resources. We will do this through expanded technical assistance cohorts and HPN’s communities of practice to support members seeking to invest in the preservation and production of energy-efficient housing and will further develop portfolio resilience strategies. We will continue market-building and lender-matching efforts that open access to climate financing for HPN members, including through HPN’s lending. And we will continue to collaborate with HPN members to defend federal resources, facilitating their deployment to support healthy and sustainable affordable housing.

There is no question that we are facing challenging times, but we in the affordable housing sector are used to solving difficult problems. We are adapting to this new environment. As we reflect on HPN’s member organizations, our network of committed partners, and the work done to advance our thinking and develop implementation strategies, we are confident in our ability to build on our collective momentum.