While the world watches and calls for swift and immediate action to address climate change, environmental justice proponents warn that not all policies are created equal, and that some may serve to exacerbate existing inequities, including by race and ethnicity. While many homeowners can invest in efficiency upgrades, electric technologies, and renewable energy generation, renters—particularly low-income and BIPOC renters—rarely have the same options. A careful approach to decarbonization must be considered to avoid exacerbating the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

Enterprise Green Communities offers a clear, cost-effective framework for all types of affordable housing. We explore four ways the criteria can help make developments financially viable.

Affordable housing developers, owners, and operators in the Rocky Mountain region of the country area face challenges ranging from the impact of drought on water supply, to the need for repairs due to high winds and other extreme weather conditions. Over the course of eight weeks this fall, a cohort of 19 affordable housing owners and operators participated in the Rocky Mountain Resilience Academy.

In this latest interview with Shaun Donovan, the CEO and president of Enterprise talks about the recent win for our Power Forward Communities coalition, his conviction that homelessness is a solvable problem, and the significance of our one million homes milestone.

As climate change intensifies, severe flood events have become more commonplace across the entire U.S. Extreme flooding disproportionately impacts low-income communities and people of color because they often live in areas that are more prone to flooding, in housing stock not well suited to weather such events, and lack adequate disaster plans as well as the financial means to evacuate and/or temporarily relocate.

Six months after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, efforts are underway to ensure that affordable multifamily housing will have pathways to benefit from this historic legislation. Enterprise Community Partners and others in affordable housing continue to work to shape the programs authorized by the IRA through public comment submissions, and through tracking updates and new guidance as it becomes available.

Green building experts delve into key parts of Enterprise's Green Communities Criteria: Integrative Design, Path to Zero Energy, Water, and Healthy Materials.