Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future's (SAHF)'s case study explores learnings from Preservation of Affordable Housing's (POAH's) Salem Heights development, which electrified the HVAC system and improved the building envelope. The report shares details about the funding used and other strategies employed to make the project come together.

This report examines how budget-constrained households balance spending on air conditioning versus other essentials like food and clothing during hot weather. Using banking data from Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago, it finds that low-income households often cope with high electricity bills by reducing air conditioning use and enduring more heat. The findings aim to help policymakers identify strategies to better support these households and improve their welfare amid rising temperatures.

Electrifying heating systems with air-to-air heat pumps is crucial for achieving global greenhouse gas targets. This report uses simulations of 550,000 U.S. households to evaluate the costs and benefits of various heat pump performance levels and insulation upgrades. The analysis highlights the potential for significant emissions reductions and identifies the importance of efficiency and insulation in optimizing cost-effectiveness. It also suggests that supportive incentives and policies may be necessary to address affordability challenges and promote widespread adoption.

Large multifamily buildings with central heating systems that burn fossil fuels are among the hardest to decarbonize, but new systems such as window-mounted heat pumps, central air-to-water heat pumps, and “mono-block” mini heat pumps provide new options for decarbonizing these buildings. This report finds that window heat pumps generally have the lowest life-cycle capital and energy costs compared to various decarbonization options. 

To support resilience planning, Stewards of Affordable Housing for All conducted a comprehensive risk assessment across its members’ portfolios, using free and nationally available tools. To help the affordable housing field take action, SAHF has developed a suite of tools that make it easier to navigate and respond to climate risks.

Enterprise hosted an online event featuring a panel of leaders in their field for a conversation about the current landscape of climate resilience, relevant strategies, and innovative funding mechanisms. Panelists were Krista Egger, VP, Building Resilient Futures, Enterprise (moderator); Steve Morel, CEO, Montgomery County Green Bank; Abby Ross, CEO, The Resiliency Company; Andrew Rumbach, senior fellow and co-lead, Climate and Communities Practice Area, Urban Institute; and Lauren Westmoreland, VP of Energy and Sustainability, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future. The event also discussed the impact of Enterprise's Resilience Academies. To date, the program has supported 140 affordable housing providers across 25 states, delivering $525,000 in pass-through grants to advance climate resilience.

Communities across the nation are regularly experiencing natural disasters or recovering from them. While all communities are at risk, low-income communities are disproportionately affected by climate events and often have limited resources to recover. This guide provides owners and operators of multifamily housing with practical guidance on re-designing and retrofitting their buildings to adapt to and provide protection from climate risks and other potential hazards.

The Enterprise Portfolio Protect Tool helps owners, operators and developers of affordable housing understand which properties are at highest risk from flooding, fire, earthquakes and other natural hazards. This tool offers users the ability to identify highest risk properties and offers recommendations and resources to help minimize potential harm to your property or properties and keep residents and their homes safe.

Salem Heights Apartments, an affordable multifamily property in Massachusetts, recently underwent a deep energy retrofit to achieve passive house performance. This case study highlights the retrofit design strategies that enable 60% energy use reduction and show the integrated benefit of efficiency improvements, electrification, and solar. Specific strategies are described for the building envelope, exterior insulation, HVAC, and solar energy.

Over half of California’s 3.2 million multifamily units were constructed before energy efficiency standards, resulting in poor performance and high greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, affordable multifamily housing must improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower tenant utility bills while enhancing quality of life. Yet building owners face many challenges to improving the performance of their buildings. This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements, combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling affordable multifamily retrofits.