Biden Administration Invests in Climate Resilience Upgrades for Low-Income Households

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded $103.4 million in new loans and grants to renovate the homes of 1,500 low-income households to be zero energy and resilient at 16 HUD-Assisted Multifamily Housing properties under the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP) as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, a key pillar of Bidenomics.

These GRRP awards will support working families and modest income individuals by making upgrades that could otherwise be cost-prohibitive to increase resilience and energy efficiency, while enhancing their lives at home by structurally modernizing the homes. The awards represent the Biden Administration’s commitment to ensuring America’s clean energy economy translates into investments in more housing supply, and safer, healthier housing that is resilient to climate disasters.

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act established the GRRP with more than $800 million in grant and loan subsidy funding to support up to $4 billion in loans. Recently, HUD announced its first-ever Funding Navigator, an interactive tool that allows users to browse and sort federal funding opportunities for billions of dollars in funding available under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). In addition, under new direct pay provisions in the IRA, tax-exempt entities, Tribes, and units of government now qualify for 48, 48(e), and 11 other clean energy related tax credits.

All the investments under the GRRP will advance President Biden’s environmental justice agenda by serving low-income families in disadvantaged communities, in alignment with the Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which ensures the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. These investments will directly benefit residents of HUD-assisted housing, each in a disadvantaged community, and will make their homes more resilient to extreme weather events and enhance their ability to more quickly respond to and recover from such events. Without this funding, HUD-assisted multifamily properties would not be able to make the same investments in greener, safer, and healthier properties that other, market-rate multifamily properties are making today.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to building more affordable housing and improving the quality of life for residents living in those homes,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “The Green and Resilient Retrofit Program continues to improve our nation’s climate resilience by making sure low-income families and individuals have access to affordable housing that is strong, healthy, and energy efficient. Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and Bidenomics, this investment brings the quality-of-life benefits of clean energy homes and advances our work, preserving the affordable housing in communities for the future.”

HUD’s latest investments will help combat the climate crisis, increase the supply of affordable housing, and support equitable economic development in American communities. In the GRRP Leading Edge category, owners are required to commit to achieving recognized green certifications, such as PHIUS REVIVE or LEEDv4 Gold or Platinum, that will lead to significant property upgrades such as on-site solar, wind turbines, FORTFIED-rated roofing, and other substantial energy efficiency and climate resilience improvements. To date, HUD has awarded more than $121 million in grants and loans in the first two GRRP funding waves, including today’s awards and awards announced on September 13, 2023, under the GRRP Elements category.

In addition, to HUD’s GRRP funding, the agency continues its work to increase the supply of affordable and sustainable housing by releasing the Climate Resource for Housing Supply Framework. The Framework discusses how climate-related investments can support the development of housing, particularly affordable housing. Key objectives of this framework are to increase awareness of new funding that can be used to address both the housing shortage and climate change, and to demonstrate ways to increase project viability by layering new funding sources with existing resources.

“In the past few months alone, we’ve witnessed devastating climate events that have destroyed people’s lives and homes,” said Assistant Secretary for Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon. “We must protect and strengthen the homes in which Americans reside, particularly those occupied by our nation’s most vulnerable populations, which is why we’re working so hard to get climate resilience and energy efficiency resources into low-income communities across the country.”

GRRP is the first HUD program to simultaneously invest in energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, climate resilience, and low embodied carbon materials in HUD-assisted multifamily housing. Investments under the program will be made in affordable housing communities serving low-income families in accordance with Bidenomics—President Biden’s agenda for building the American economy from the middle out and the bottom up.

The GRRP Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) and additional guidance released on May 11, 2023, detail the multiple funding options for which property owners may apply:

• Elements provides funding to owners for proven and meaningful climate resilience and utility efficiency measures in projects that are already in the process of being recapitalized.
• Leading Edge provides funding to owners with plans for ambitious retrofit activities to achieve an advanced green certification.
• Comprehensive provides funding to properties with the highest need for climate resilience and utility efficiency upgrades, regardless of prior development or environmental retrofit experience.

Property owners are encouraged to continue to submit applications for grant awards or loans in any of the three categories. HUD is reviewing applications under one category each month for the duration of funding availability. HUD expects to announce awards regularly throughout 2023 and 2024, including awards under the Comprehensive category in the coming weeks.

Click here for a full list of grantees.