DOE Weatherization Assistance Program Health & Safety

1. DOE Weatherization Assistance ProgramHealth & Safety

2. What do we mean when we say “Healthy homes”?

3. Healthy Homes: Phase I Phase I: Understand and Assess the Issue • Assess Training Needs: • Inventory existing training programs that addresses “healthy home” issues for weatherization workers; evaluate content and accuracy • Identify where additional training is needed • Survey WAP providers (collect “on the ground” info) to identify: • Which health hazards they encounter most frequently • Whether they address them; whether other programs exist and can address • How they would address them ideally • How much it would cost (or does cost) to remediate • How often they cannot address the issue and must “walk away” from the home • Develop clear consistent program guidance for consistent implementation: • Evaluate eligibility of health remediation efforts for DOE WAP funding • Maximize health benefits within eligibility boundaries • Provide clarified guidance to WAP providers on eligibility • Make recommendations for revised/new program structure if relevant

4. Goal and Status • Goal: Assess current health and safety activities, challenges and opportunities. • Status: • Hired NREL/National Center for Healthy Housing/Tohn Environmental Strategies • Reviewed state plans, DOE Guidance, model training courses • Phone Interviews with 44 states and 40 local programs • Preliminary results under review, welcome your feedback • Observations of current activities & challenges • Opportunities to improve integration of health and safety

5. Healthy Homes: Phase II Phase II: Assess and Strengthen Referral Networks • Identify which health issues cannot be remediated with WAP funding and do not have other federal programs to address • Survey WAP providers to gain an understanding of existing partnerships with organizations that can remediate health issues • Where gaps exist between partnerships that are needed and partnerships that exist, we will assist the WAP network in identifying appropriate organizations with which to partner, help formalize relationships • Assess the referral process used by WAP providers (e.g., material given to the client, calls made to referral partners, follow-up calls with the client and/or referral partner, process through which the client is placed by in the queue for weatherization services, etc.); determine best practice • Develop a database for tracking and managing referral relationships and partners; provide web-based access to information from the database to make it available to workers in the field for real-time action

6. National Healthy Homes Initiatives

7. Resources • HUD Healthy Homes Office • EPA Office of Children’s Health • EPA Office of Indoor Air Quality • National Center for Healthy Housing • WAP Health & Safety Guidance and State Plans • Green & Healthy Homes Initiative • National Residential Retrofit Guidelines

8. Radon Study…

9. Keys to successful, effective integration of health and energy efficiency (at the state/local level): • Collaboration between Weatherization Offices and Health Departments (sometimes administered out of the same office, or through a “liaison” that works with both) • Clear protocols for workers to follow to identify energy and health-related retrofit opportunities, simultaneously • Support of political actors and elected officials • Leveraging of funds from other sources (e.g., foundations, complementary federal and local programs, etc.) • Cross-trained workforce to deliver health- and energy-related retrofit services, or clear delineation of roles if different workers

10. Jennifer Somers Jennifer.Somers@ee.doe.gov Ryan Middleton Ryan.Middleton@ee.doe.gov Please provide us Feedback