With gas prices topping $4 a gallon families and businesses are facing a real burden. But we can take action to ensure the American people don't fall victim to volatile energy costs over the long term.
And with 40 percent of America's carbon emissions coming from our buildings, one of the most important steps is building and retrofitting homes to cost less to power, heat and cool.
That's why nearly a third of HUD's Recovery Act funds can be used for "greening" America's affordable housing stock.
With these funds, we are on track to provide 245,000 affordable homes with a range of energy improvements, while another 55,000 receive green retrofits that will save up to 40 percent in energy costs.
Dozens of those homes can be found in the San Francisco Bay Area at Eden Issei Terrace, a 100‐apartment residence for low‐income seniors in Hayward, California. Using $750,000 in Recovery Act funds, Eden made energy upgrades that are already cutting utility costs by a third. Just as important, this investment has created good-paying jobs that can't be outsourced.
Properties like these have proven that investments in green housing pay for themselves.
Our challenge now is to catalyze that change on a transformational scale - driven by the massive private investment we need to win the future.
That's why I went to Eden Issei Tuesday to launch Green Refinance Plus - a new Obama Administration initiative that builds on Recovery Act investments to unlock the private capital we need to retrofit thousands of affordable homes.
A joint effort between the Federal Housing Administration and Fannie Mae, Green Refinance Plus will help owners of older affordable multifamily properties be among the first to go green while refinancing their mortgages at today's historically low interest rates.
While FHA provides additional insurance coverage, Fannie Mae will provide loan underwriting that will generate additional loan proceeds to make green improvements.
A typical development will be able to access a loan that is 5 percent larger. For a $5 million loan, that means an additional $250,000 will be available to support green systems and appliances -- saving owners and renters money, while reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Green Refinance Plus provides real bang for the buck -- and another jolt to our economy, which has already added 2.1 million private sector jobs over 14 consecutive months.
Over the next four years, the green building industry will support nearly 8 million jobs and generate more than a half trillion dollars in economic activity.
Together, these efforts reflect a fundamental belief of President Obama's: That when we invest in clean energy, we invest in a new generation of professionals, ready to build, install, repair and maintain clean energy technologies.
That greening our homes is one of the keys to the 21st century economy -- and to out-innovating our competitors.
And that real change requires leadership, solutions and capital from the private sector.
Driving that change is what Green Refinance Plus is about -- and why I was proud to unveil it this week.
Follow Shaun Donovan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HUDnews
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We need to rethink 'growth'. We might not have perfect but we've got to have a Great Renewal. We've got to bend our attention, innovation and investment into 'growing' every aspect of our life on this planet or we will face even bigger and bigger problems.
Perhaps 'green homes' aren't perfect but then the Model T wasn't the car of today. We have to change and anyone who wants to do business as usual is sailing a sinking ship.
What we see is the green upgrades. What we don't see is what would have been done with the money had the government not taken it.
I take no issue with people personally choosing to do whatever they want to reduce their energy use.
But I've heard no convincing argument that severe weather isn't just something that's part of the natural cycle. Tornadoes, hurricanes
The decadal oscillatio
1--> He tries to imply gas and electricit
2--> The only reason it's "economica
This is all part of the green desire to force prices up higher and higher to make green energy the de facto option. Great idea, until you consider the cost in dollars, jobs, and the major detriment to economic growth.
Efficiency is not an over-ridin
In just the last 60 years, we have invented nuclear power, increased the efficiency of most industrial Rankine cycles (i.e., the power-gene
Trying to act like a water or school bond is a useful "first lien" assessment when it does nothing to improve the value of the asset, while pretending that a 100% (or more) dollar-to-
PACE loans, not these lame useless expensive mortgages!
No matter how many windmills and solar panels and cisterns, the best way to make a house green is to make it small and build it on an urban, infill lot. My reply to him was, "No, but I'll design a house for you anyway." - gotta eat, right?
this is a reasonable enough approach, but I'm sure that you and your boss know that there's no way to 'green' houses in pedestrian
http://dc.
It's a laudable goal to promote greening our housing stock. But that can't happen absent a recognitio
being able to get a house that they can afford to heat and cool will harm their future?
being able to breathe a little better will harm them?
not having to worry about polution causing as much harm to their children will harm them?
Americans are is sick of these "green stunts" at the expense of business growth.
Fix the Fannie and Freddie fiscal crisis.
Stop the enviro gimmicks.
ECOPOLITIC
"Using $750,000 in Recovery Act funds, Eden made energy upgrades"
The only reason this even happened was because they receiver $750,000 in free money
Obviously not. The answer is easily in the tens of TRILLIONS of dollars.