Housing supply shortages, affordability challenges, and climate change disproportionately affect Black, Hispanic, Latino, and other households of color. Because of historic and ongoing inequities in housing and lending markets, these households fare worse in increasingly tight and expensive housing markets. New affordable supply for low-income households and households of color is often located in areas at risk of climate-related disaster, exacerbating inequities. To address the affordable housing shortage in ways that reverse the underlying racial inequities, climate risks, and sustainability challenges embedded in our housing system, JPMorgan Chase invests in scalable and innovative solutions that increase the supply and preservation of climate-resilient affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households of color. This cohort of grantees is working to advance new models of climate-resilient affordable housing that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fortify households against climate hazards, and reduce household cost burdens through lowered utility and health care costs.”
Grantee Descriptions
National Housing Trust
Decarbonizing residential housing can improve families’ health and finances and, when done equitably, can preserve affordable housing for those who need it most. But limited financial resources, a lack of alignment among critical decisionmakers, and a lack of resident buy-in can make it difficult to achieve those outcomes. Through this grant, the National Housing Trust (NHT) is expanding holistic building energy retrofits that can preserve affordability and improve resident health across the Washington, DC, area. Using a systems-level approach, the NHT engages residents to help design the program, increases owners’ capacity to retrofit buildings, and engages decisionmakers and lenders to make public resources and mission-driven capital products more accessible and aligned for decarbonizing affordable housing.
People United for Sustainable Housing Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, is one of the nation’s poorest cities and has the second-oldest housing stock. With high income inequality and lack of access to high-quality housing and jobs, racialized poverty is a persistent challenge in the region. Changing climate conditions are exacerbating these challenges. In 2009, People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) Buffalo established a Green Development Zone (GDZ) to approach climate change as a transformational opportunity to build a more resilient and equitable future for the community. The GDZ is 40-square-block place-based strategy in West Buffalo that combines green affordable housing construction, community-based renewable energy projects, housing weatherization, green jobs training, green infrastructure, and vacant land restoration projects. PUSH Buffalo is integrating green technology upgrades to lower utility costs and to increase sustainability for their new rental and ownership properties throughout the GDZ. The GDZ aims to create pathways to employment for neighborhood residents, improve housing conditions, and reduce the neighborhood’s carbon footprint.
come dream. come build.
Affordable housing in Texas is increasingly hard to find, as sales prices have risen significantly over the past few years. Rural areas, such as the Rio Grande Valley, are particularly hard hit by these cost increases. A third of Cameron County residents live below the federal poverty level, and many of them reside in old or unsafe housing. Many low-income residents are both housing and energy burdened. The MiCASiTA program creates environmentally sustainable housing options that low-income households can afford. Using a volumetric modular construction and expandable design and financing, MiCASiTA achieves scalable homeownership options that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase cost savings for residents. come dream. come build. is expanding the program, integrating solar energy systems on the units and at the manufacturing site, and building the infrastructure to seed six expansion partnerships in other rural Black, Latinx, and Native communities experiencing persistent poverty.
Solar and Energy Loan Fund
Households with low and moderate incomes in the Southeast, particularly Black and Latino households, face limited affordable housing supply and increased climate hazards that threaten their homes and wealth. Facing high housing and energy cost burdens, these households have limited resources to make resilience improvements that can improve stability and lower their monthly costs. The Solar and Energy Loan Fund (SELF) is developing a three-pronged approach to address this challenge. To assist homebuyers, SELF is implementing a franchising model to expand its unsecured home improvement loan program for homeowners of color with low credit scores. To assist landlords, SELF is replicating its Sustainable, Energy Efficiency, Resilient loan program for landlords of affordable housing rentals with incentives to make resiliency and energy efficiency improvements to existing rental units. To support developers, SELF has launched the SAGE Home Loans Program, which unlocks capital for new affordable and workforce housing developments, including gap financing and green credit enhancements that encourage energy efficiency and resilience upgrades for mid-to-large-scale buildings.
Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services
In Southern California, a long-standing housing shortage and a flood of demand is fueling an affordability crisis that is disproportionately affecting low-income households and households of color and is expanding unsustainable land-use patterns. Coupled with the persistent threat of fire and an increasing number of extreme heat events, there is a growing need for climate-resilient affordable units. Serving San Bernardino, Riverside, and Eastern Los Angeles counties, Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services (NPHS) is building and testing a scalable social enterprise, Homes by NPHS LLC, to harness the potential of factory-built housing technology to increase the affordable housing supply and to mitigate the impacts of climate change by using infill lots. NPHS is leveraging various in-house services, including its homebuyer education program and tailored down payment assistance and mortgage products, to ensure that ownership of its factory-built homes is accessible and affordable for households of color with low and moderate incomes.
