Power Forward Communities, a landmark coalition Enterprise co-leads with some of the country’s most trusted community development, climate, and housing organizations, is purpose-built to decarbonize America’s homes and drive a market transformation that cuts costs, benefits renters and homeowners, and focuses on low-income communities nationwide. The EPA has awarded the coalition a $2 billion National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) grant.
Together with our coalition partners – Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity International, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and United Way Worldwide – Enterprise will use this award to deploy a powerful combination of financing, market building, and community engagement to create healthier, safer, more affordable homes.
The National Clean Investment Fund, part of the Inflation Reduction Act, represents one of the most profound public investments in climate resilience in our nation’s history. With this award, Enterprise has been entrusted to help turn the nation’s most critical climate legislation into transformational housing legislation by ensuring hundreds of thousands of affordable homes are built or preserved.
Program overview
From big cities to small towns, rural tracts, and Tribal lands, reducing household emissions is critical to building a more sustainable future. We know that rising emissions have devastating, disproportionate consequences for low-income communities and people of color. Our work through Power Forward Communities aims to change the calculus and bring down both costs and emissions, charting a new course for sustainability and affordability.
Power Forward Communities will harness this NCIF award to provide financing to housing providers across the country to phase out older technologies, weatherize homes, and make them more efficient and affordable. Our five organizations are effectively positioned to pair that financing with know-how: technical assistance, training programs, digital resources, United Way’s 211 network, and other tools to raise awareness, build demand, and bring down the costs of decarbonization.
Adding to our strong foothold, to date, 321 organizations, including 156 local communities across 46 states in every EPA region, have committed to decarbonizing millions of American homes and ensuring no community is left behind amid the energy transition.
Our approach
Four key principles will drive our strategy:
- Reduce friction: Right now, homeowners and housing providers must navigate a complex web of regulations, incentives, tax credits, and systems. Power Forward Communities’ goal is to simplify household decarbonization for homeowners, multifamily housing providers, and building owners.
- Aggregate consumer demand: Working with communities and local governments, Power Forward Communities will bundle opportunities to create market leverage, reduce the cost of decarbonization projects by as much as 50 percent, and create sustainable conditions for market transformation.
- Create affordable financing solutions: Power Forward Communities will establish transparent, fair, and affordable financing solutions to advance decarbonization-focused lending products.
- Create a more equitable future: The coalition will invest in workforce development to increase access to local, high-paying jobs. Leveraging our experience with private investors and philanthropies, we will seek to attract additional resources to decarbonize even more of America’s homes over the long term.
What will Enterprise offer?
With a 40-year track record of making a good home possible in communities nationwide, we will leverage more than two decades of experience as an industry leader in equitable decarbonization, green building, and climate resilience to launch new programs and financial supports through Power Forward Communities later this summer.
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Interested housing, community, government, and technical assistance partners can learn more and see our Frequently Asked Questions by visiting powerforwardcommunities.org.
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Get updates about the financing and technical assistance we will provide through Power Forward Communities as they become available.