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.

Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future's (SAHF)'s case study explores challenges and achievements from The Community Builders' North Commons at Village Hill development in western Massachusetts, built to the Passive House standard. The case study shares the developer's perspective on assembling a team, electrifying hot water heating, and installing Phius-compliant windows. Ultimately, the benefits outweighed the costs for this development.

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.

The Massachusetts Decarbonization Hub helps owners of affordable multifamily housing interested in reducing carbon emissions from their Massachusetts properties navigate the complicated landscape of decarbonization. Created in partnership with LISC Boston and RMI, this site provides quick access to guides, resources, and funding opportunities currently available to support these projects. The Hub outlines some key steps to decarbonization, connects owners with technical providers, directs owners to the available incentive and grant funding programs, and showcases case studies of recent deep energy retrofit projects for inspiration.

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.

The Hub is a technical resource designed to help equip the multifamily affordable housing community in Colorado with electrification design and decisions through access to technical resources, peer learning, and financing and development resources. This resource supports Colorado’s Renewable Energy and Climate Action Goals. In addition to local code compliance, building electrification can help reduce carbon emissions, improve indoor air quality for residents, reduce operating costs, and more.

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.