Incorporating Health and Safety into Home Energy Upgrade Programs

Workshop Series: Advancing Home Upgrades with ENERGY STAR and R2E2

This is the fourth workshop in a series designed to support community-based organizations, small businesses, and local governments in efficient electrification home upgrade deployments. Topics include grant funding for workforce development, addressing health and safety roadblocks, leveraging the ENERGY STAR Home Upgrade marketing platform and Service Provider Partnership, stacking and braiding funds with Inflation Reduction Act rebates, and energy affordability considerations for electrification. Learn more about this workshop series.

Incorporating Health and Safety into Home Energy Upgrade Programs

Date: Thursday, November 14, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. ET

Target Audience: Community-based organizations (CBOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Non-profit Organizations, small businesses, local governments, state governments, Tribes

Description: Participants will hear from the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative as well as health and energy practitioners in the field. In addition to reducing energy use and cutting utility bills, home energy upgrades can reduce pollution and improve the health of residents. This workshop will begin with an introduction to the link between housing and health and then provide an overview of healthy housing principles. We’ll hear about how addressing health and safety hazards increases the reach and equitable impact of energy upgrade programs, as well as how the programs impact occupants’ health.

We’ll explore case studies from around the country for best practices to achieve health and energy goals. The workshop will also outline how to effectively partner with health sector stakeholders, identify health funding sources, and review potential solutions to overcoming barriers to implementing healthy housing upgrades.

Learning Goals

Understand the importance of healthy housing
Understand how energy upgrades can improve occupants' health
Identify barriers to incorporating health in residential retrofits
Understand the concept of a whole house approach to comprehensively provide home energy, health, and safety upgrades
Propose solutions to overcoming barriers and implementing healthy housing services

Plan your time:

1:00-1:45 p.m. ET: Presentation and Q&A: Health inequity and why housing quality is a social determinant of health

How does weatherization improve health?
Why should administrators integrate health and safety into energy upgrade programs?

1:45-2:25 p.m. ET: Presentation, Case Studies, and Q&A: How integrating health and safety into energy upgrade programs helps serve low-income/disadvantaged communities without deferrals

Why are weatherization deferrals a problem?
Which funding sources can address weatherization deferrals?
Case studies

2:25-3:05 p.m. ET: Presentation, Case Studies, and Q&A: Innovations and opportunities unlocked by integrating health, safety, and energy upgrades

What are non-energy benefits of weatherization and efficiency upgrades?
How can we measure the health impacts of retrofits?
How can programs partner with the health sector for referrals and/or funding?
Case studies

3:05-3:20 p.m. ET: Break

3:20-4:00 p.m. ET: Interactive Chat with a Practitioner Session

Facilitated small group discussions with health and energy practitioners

Speakers:

Ruth Ann Norton
President and CEO
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative

Ruth Ann Norton is the President & CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI). She has led its development into one of the nation’s most effective and foremost authorities on healthy housing and its impact on the social determinants of health. She directs GHHI’s national strategy to integrate climate, healthcare, and healthy housing as a platform for improved health, economic, and social outcomes in historically disinvested communities.

Ruth Ann is a noted expert on building community capacity and effective work plans to incorporate environmental health standards in housing-related programs. She is leading GHHI’s $50 million Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program for EPA Region 3 to fund environmental justice projects across the Mid-Atlantic and is spearheading GHHI’s work in the development and implementation of decarbonization, electrification, and climate change mitigation services for low-income households.

Bert Cooper
Vice President for State and Local Strategic Services
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative

As the Vice President for State and Local Strategic Services, Bert supports GHHI staff around the country as they work with local partners to deliver technical assistance, implement national and local initiatives, and develop new collaborations to advance GHHI’s mission to address the social drivers of health, opportunity, and equity through GHHI’s integrated model to create healthy and climate-friendly housing.

Bert has spent the last 30 years working in the areas of health equity, housing, and workforce development. Bert was part of the original GHHI launch team in 2010 and recently returned to the organization after establishing C3 Community Solutions, a consulting practice that worked to strengthen non-profit organizations and design, fund, and implement collaborative affordable housing, economic and workforce development, and health equity initiatives to create better futures for families with low and moderate incomes. Bert also served as the Executive Director at Community Works Rhode Island, a Providence, RI-based NeighborWorks America chartered community development corporation. He spent his formative years working for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the City of Providence, and as a community organizer for the Seattle Housing Authority.

Celisia Rouson-Smith

Director, Family Advocacy Services

As Director, Family Advocacy Services, Celisia Rouson-Smith manages GHHI’s client environmental health education, national and local trainings and its Asthma Program. Celisia works with families to identify health hazardous conditions and provide resident education on improving health and safety within the home while coordinating higher level housing interventions with GHHI’s Housing Intervention Services team.

Wynn Tucker
Director, Policy & Innovation
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative

Wynn Tucker serves as Director, Policy & Innovation at the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI). In this role, he engages in research, technical assistance, program management, and policy advocacy at the intersection of health, housing, and energy. He manages the New York Healthy Homes Collaborative, a first-of-its-kind, pay-for-success asthma home visiting program serving a Medicaid population in New York City. He has published reports on housing quality and health hazards such as lead paint and poor indoor air quality, as well as on the health impacts of residential appliance electrification. He is also supporting the development of a comprehensive electrification and health and safety upgrade pilot program in East Baltimore. His experience includes working in federal climate and energy policy, housing and environmental justice programs, and climate technology commercialization.

Amy Dryden
Director of Strategic Innovations
Association for Energy Affordability, Inc.

Amy Dryden is Director of Strategic Innovations at the Association for Energy Affordability, Inc. specializing in strategic initiatives, codes and standards, program design, training, and research projects focused on decarbonization, indoor air quality, and health. She brings more than 20 years of experience in residential green building design and construction, consulting, and planning, and works to advance the industry to deliver sustainable and healthy housing. Amy works with diverse set of stakeholders including contractors, consultants, building owners and developers, utilities, federal and state agencies, program managers, property managers, local governments, and design teams to provide healthy affordable housing in a decarbonized future.

Richard Faesy
Principal and Co-Founder
Energy Futures Group

Richard Faesy is a principal and co-founder of Energy Futures Group (EFG) in Hinesburg, Vermont. He has more than 35 years of experience in the clean energy industry working with hundreds of clients and programs throughout the U.S. and Canada. Prior to founding EFG, Richard worked at the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation for 21 years.

Heidi O'Mara
Environmental Sustainability Coordinator
City of Fort Collins

Heidi O’Mara is the environmental justice program coordinator for the City of Fort Collins' Healthy Homes program which focuses on working with the community to create healthy, efficient and resilient home environments. Her background is in science education, public health, and sustainability. She previously worked as a high school science teacher before pursuing her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Community Health Education and Triple Bottom Line MBA in Corporate and Environmental Sustainability. Heidi is passionate about environmental justice, health equity and working with community members on social and environmental sustainability issues.

Emily Olivo
Lead Environmental Sustainability Specialist
City of Fort Collins Environmental Services

Emily Olivo is a Lead Environmental Sustainability Specialist for the City of Fort Collins, Colorado. In this role she serves as project manager for Healthy Homes, an indoor air quality-focused environmental justice program, as well as the Climate Equity Committee, a group of area residents ensuring equity in the City’s climate plan. She holds a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from North Carolina State University, and has spent her career working at intersections of environment, social justice, and education.