Leveraging the Stimulus:

1. Community Innovators Lab Leveraging the Stimulus: Retrofitting Communities to Build Equity & Sustainability May 11th, 2009

2. Maximizing the Impact • Leverage different funding sources & build partnerships • Invest in “deep retrofits” to maximize gains & to prevent lost opportunities • Infuse equity into allocation of funds and design of programs • Ensure that short-term gains are investments into long-term “triple bottom lines”

3. Only Top 20% With Significant Income Increases from 1998-2006

4. ENERGY BURDEN

5. Strategies for Mitigating Effects on Low-Income & Capacity-Building • Utilize Stimulus Funds • Increase Energy Efficiency • Manage demand through education & Smart Grid • Create economic development opportunities for shared wealth generation through green jobs, green businesses, etc. • Ensure equitable access to educational and communications technologies such as broadband www.DemocracyAndRegulation.com

6. Example of Demand management Source: www.gridpoint.com/curve/overview/

7. Some “Green” Funds in the Stimulus Total in energy efficiency alone: $12.35 billion • 3.1B State Energy Programs • 3.2B Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants • 5B Weatherization Assistance Programs (WAP) • Up to 1B Training & TA $ from WAP • .5B Green Jobs • .3B ENERGY STAR Rebates • .25B HUD Section 8 Housing • 6B Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee • 4.5B Smart Grid Investment Program • .1B Jobs Training for Smart Grid • 7.2B Broadband

8. Examples Low Income Weatherization (WAP) $5 billion, expanded from $400 million (est.) • Includes up to 20% for Training and Technical Assitance • Increase per-house expenditure from $2,500 to $6,500 • Increase eligibility from 150% to 200% of poverty level Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant • Opportunity for funds to be used for comprehensive planning • Includes both formula & competitive grants • Up to 15% can be used for revolving loans • Up to 20% can be allocated to non-profits Section 8 Energy Retrofit • $250 million directed to project based section 8 housing for energy retrofits • HUD is responsible for implementation. No more details yet Green Jobs Training • $500 million • Dept. of Labor, Office of Employment and Training Administration • Includes research, job exchange and training

11. DUSP Stimulus Project - Work Plan Coordination Plan Model General Proposal Specific Proposal Policy Argument Mission Mission Assessment Questions & Programs That Fit Analysis & Coordination Diagram Comprehensive Roadmap Matrix Best Practices at Scale Technical Assistance Sources Technical Assistance Resources Community Role Community Role Civic Action & Advocacy

12. Broad Mission Goals • Encourage comprehensive community-based planning • Why: Communities are more likely to participate if they are involved in decision-making. Innovations require a high amount of community education and input • Build community capacity & improve community resilience • Why: Improving the capacity of low-income communities to act on their own behalf will help to blunt the negative effects of economic downturns and will also support communities in seizing positive opportunities. • Leverage existing funding sources with each other and with private investment • Why: Leveraging sources will increase multiplier effects, create synergies, and help to capitalize on the short-term stimulus to provide infrastructure for long-term projects and programs. • Perform “Deep” Retrofit buildings in low-income communities of color • Why: These communities tend to reside in areas with the worst building stock, deep retrofits deliver the greatest “bang for the buck” and helps to increase savings for communities • Reduce global warming pollution • Why: Cutting carbon emissions and other types of pollution will improve health conditions for all people and reduce negative environmental impacts.

13. Specific Mission Goals Increase Equitable Access to Resources & Opportunities • Conserve resources (ie. Materials, waste water, energy, etc) • Why: Taking action on conservation is a built-in income generating program with multiple spin-off effects • Ensure convenient access to healthy foods • Why: Low income people are experiencing spike in diabetes and other nutrition related diseases and access to healthy foods is critical • Green public facilities (schools, hospitals, public housing, waste stations) • Why: They tend to be located in low-income areas and greening them could produce opportunities for improving facilities, creating local businesses (cooperatives, private, non-profits) and maintaining community level systems (energy, food, water) • Increase broadband access • Why: The poor have least access to broadband and are most in need of 21st century education and economic development opportunities • Prioritize the needs of disabled and impoverished elderly and children • Why: Poor communities have high concentrations of these vulnerable populations, which need additional help during the retrofitting process and other “greening” processes.

14. Specific Mission Goals Create & Train for Well-Paying Jobs & Local Economic Development • Create jobs, training opportunities, and career ladders for communities with high unemployment and poverty • Why: Self help system reduces spin-off costs from unemployment and poverty • Build sustainable economic development by supporting and investing in minority and women-owned businesses • Why: Such businesses tend to encourage entrepreneurship in and capacity-building for under-resourced communities and can be “next steps” on green jobs career pathways. Invest in Measures to Aid Communities in Addressing Prohibitive Costs of Adaptation • Retrofit homes in neighborhoods with high foreclosure problems • Why: Such retrofits will help to reduce cost to homeowners and prevent further foreclosures • Prevent displacement of low-income residents by maintaining housing and cost-of-living affordability • Why: Saving energy and transportation costs is increasingly critical in ensuring low-income communities are not displaced from their neighborhoods

15. 6 Components of “Deep” Retrofits A coherent vision for maximizing the benefits of green retrofits must jointly address six critical and interrelated elements: • 1. Infrastructure: Retrofits require an informed and context-sensitive choice of technology and materials at the building level. • 2. Employment: Equitable retrofits can contribute to the economy through credentialed training programs, broad labor-community-business consensus on job access and performance, and the design of inclusive labor standards. • 3. Business model: Small business development requires new, sustainable business models that ensure high quality work. • 4. Financing: Leveraging existing funding sources with each other and private investment will create programmatic synergy while increasing the multiplier effect of the stimulus plan • 5. Community planning: Thus, an optimal retrofit plan will include high community involvement in project design; advanced leadership training for key local actors; and additional support through public policy and regulations. • 6. Coordination:  These scaled urban retrofits are both extremely attractive social projects and enormously complex. Thus, their execution requires extensive coordination.

16. Community Assessment & Programs That Fit • Excel tool that allows cities/coalitions/organizations to answer assessment questions and link those answers to stimulus programs that are a good “fit” • Evaluate current context of organization/groups of actors • Evaluate goals & capacity of specific orgnization • Evaluate capacity and goals of potential partners • Identify the most pressing needs of the communities • What synergies that might exist between stimulus programs? • How to coordinate multiple programs to achieve specific goals? • What are strategies for partnering with the public and private sector to maximize funds? • What capacity is needed by base-building organizations to leverage the stimulus?

17. Step 1 - Community Assessment

18. Step 2 - Community Assessment Answers

19. Step 3 – Identifying Programs that Fit

20. Best Practices for 6 Components (In Progress) 1. Infrastructure • “Whole House” Weatherization • Retrofitting Public Facilities • Energy Generation • Smart Grid & Broadband 2. Employment • Career Bridges & Pathways • Coupling job training with ACTUAL jobs • Creating community/training/private sector partnerships 3. Business model • Emphasis on minority & women-owned enterprises • Procurement of contracts • Scaling up • Financing

21. Best Practices for 6 Components (In Progress) 4. Financing • Tax breaks • On-bill financing • Selling energy to the Forward Capacity Market 5. Community planning • Comprehensive neighborhood planning • Popular education & decision-making • Building capacity for implementation 6. Coordination • Models for coordination between key stakeholders • Leveraging partnerships to gain power to implement

22. Civic Action & Advocacy • No guarantee that funds will be spent in a manner that promotes jobs, job training, and community organization in underserved communities • Civic action & advocacy is the key to properly investing these funds.  • National organizations released toolkits to assist local actors organize for green jobs. • Link for Green For All Recovery Toolkit: http://www.greenforall.org/resources/recoverytoolkit • Link for Sierra Club Cool Cities Activist Toolkit: http://newjersey.sierraclub.org/ConCom/CoolCities/Cool_Cities_Activist_Toolkit_4-4-0623.PDF • Community Innovators Lab (CoLab), in conjunction with the Emerald Cities Initiative, is also seeking to catalyze civic action.

23. Community Innovators Lab Leveraging the Stimulus: Retrofitting Communities to Build Equity & Sustainability May 11th, 2009