Make housing equity part of energy shift
Last month, world leaders descended upon New York City for the United Nations General Assembly to give stirring speeches, deliver dire warnings and announce climate commitments.
These global convenings are important, of course, but as someone who has spent the last two years studying the nuts and bolts of how to ensure the energy transition benefits the lives of people in my community of Worcester, high-level meetings like that can seem a bit in the clouds.
One of the big announcements came from the Biden administration and a group of 25 governors known as the United States Climate Alliance, which includes Massachusetts and Gov. Maura Healey, in which the governors committed to collectively install 20 million heat pumps across their states by 2030. Heat pumps are a highly efficient electrical alternative to gas heat in the cold months and can also replace air conditioning units in the hot months.
Heating buildings with oil and gas is responsible for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions statewide, so in the context of hitting climate targets, heat pumps are a critical tool. Viewed from this perspective, committing to install millions of heat pumps is welcome news.
As I read the press release in my living room, I looked around at stacks of boxes from a community event hosted by the NAACP-Worcester, where we presented the results of a two-year-long study to examine the feasibility of electrifying Worcester’s historic threedecker multifamily buildings. The boxes are full of posters in English and Spanish with building diagrams, colored pencil drawings by Worcester residents depicting their visions for sustainable and healthy housing, and handwritten Post-its sharing participants’ experiences of living in three-deckers.
The goal to install 20 million heat pumps felt about as distant from our daily lives as the marbled rostrum of the United Nations feels from my coffee table.
Fifty-eight percent of households in Worcester rent their homes, and the trajectory is going up. Our nation’s history of racist housing policies like redlining and lending discrimination shows up today in the reality of who lives where in Worcester and who rents their home. Black, Hispanic and immigrant families make up the majority of Worcester’s renters and are left trying to make ends meet as the costs of rents and utilities rise but income stays the same.
Many of Worcester’s roughly 5,000 historic three-deckers have also fallen into a state of disrepair, with structural damage, ineffective insulation or outdated electrical systems, exposing tenants to hazards like leaks, mold, vermin or heightened fire risk. Some of this deferred maintenance may be attributed to private developers, which own many three-deckers and are driven by profit rather than community or tenant wellbeing.
Neighborhoods with mostly renters also have less tree cover and green space, exposing the people who live there to the harshest impacts of extreme heat, flood or cold.
Campaigns to make housing more sustainable and healthier must go beyond emissions and appliances and find ways to directly confront and repair our long history of housing injustice. Otherwise, the energy transition will widen the wealth and health gap.
For example, due to their structure, floor plans, electrical and ventilation systems, three-deckers are uniquely challenging to heat with heat pumps. Doing so will require major work, which many of these buildings need anyway. But this is costly, and landlords need incentives, subsidies and education to put this kind of investment into a rental property.
Costs could be partially addressed if existing state subsidies for gas-fueled heating systems were redesigned to support electrification of low-income housing. But additional grants would likely be needed, and that would still leave questions on the table like where families go while their homes are undergoing renovation, and how to prevent landlords from raising rents and displacing their tenants.
Given the current challenges, the path of least resistance is simply that most three-deckers will remain on gas heat, and the 20 million heat pumps will be installed in homes that present fewer barriers. That means that as millions of Massachusetts residents choose heat pumps and see a dramatic drop in costs, families who remain on gas will see their monthly bills climb.
After all, someone has to pay for gasline maintenance, and as the customer pool shrinks, fewer people will have to shoulder more of the burden. In Worcester, 13% of Black/African American families are already energy-burdened, paying 43% more of their income on utility costs than White non-Hispanic families; 13% of Hispanic/Latinx families pay 20% more.
We cannot simply choose the path of least resistance.
Policymakers must recognize how structural racism lurks in our public policy and built environment and implement creative solutions to overcome it. Solutions require approaches outside the boxes that keep us trapped in inequity.
For example, an anti-racist, social equity motivated organization backed by Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act funding could repair and electrify some but not all of Worcester’s three-deckers. A pilot initiative to electrify the threedecker at 23 Hollis St. backed by the Main South Community Development Corp. and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is a model that we will learn from. Solutions should also include creating pathways to home ownership for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Indigenous, immigrant and low-income families who aspire to own homes but have been systematically locked out of this critical foothold to economic security.
Worcester is taking steps in the right direction, recently adopting a “greener” building code ensuring that new construction will be virtually carbon neutral. But we need to do more to improve our older homes and the quality of life for the people who live in them. The energy transition is a chance to help us repair historical wounds, to craft policies and programs with the input of those who have historically been overlooked, and to begin to govern more equitably. We cannot miss the opportunity.
Jeuji Diamondstone is a resident of Worcester and the outgoing chair of the NAACP-Worcester’s Environmental and Climate Justice Committee.