Low-Income Housing Can Be Energy Efficient Too
I’m in Boston today, meeting with the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, Talbot North Triangle Neighbors United, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and other stakeholders to discuss sustainability planning for a community on the south side of the city. It’s an exciting project, helping to bring environmental benefits to a low-income neighborhood. I look forward to writing more about it soon.
I’ll definitely be meeting some of the people in this video, which describes a closely related program to bring energy efficiency and lower utility bills to residents of affordable housing in Boston. In particular, the Boston LISC office has begun a green building retrofit initiative focusing on the city’s existing affordable housing stock and working with eleven neighborhood-based, nonprofit community development corporations. More than 2,000 apartments have been retrofitted so far, each saving an average of 19 percent in energy costs. The work is supported by the Barr Foundation.
Watch the people involved tell a great story:
This post originally appeared on the NRDC's Switchboard blog.
Kaid Benfield is the director of the Sustainable Communities program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law, co-founder of the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system, and co-founder of Smart Growth America coalition, and author of several books on cities, smart growth and sprawl.
Watch for Kaid’s forthcoming book,
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