Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI)

Photo Credit: Green & Healthy Homes Initiative

Commitment to Action

Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI)

Commitment by

Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning

In 2012, the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning committed to scaling its Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) to 25 new cities in the next three years. This $11.82 million commitment will leverage $250 million in public and private investments, create 25,000 Green & Healthy Homes, and 1,550 green construction jobs. GHHI is a high quality, high impact approach to housing rehabilitation that drives public and private sector collaboration, streamlines service delivery, integrates energy and healthy housing interventions and develops new community-based green and healthy homes contractors. This commitment builds on GHHI's initial 15 pilot cities that have successfully enrolled 7,000 housing units. To achieve this scale-up, GHHI will provide sites with a comprehensive tool-kit, integrated interventions, and a shared data platform and systems to braid multiple funding streams. GHHI will target unemployed and low skilled incumbent workers for employment training that will enable them to perform the comprehensive GHHI intervention. GHHI has established an initial goal to have at least 20 percent of the contracting pool include women or women-owned businesses.

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Overview

Summary

Commitment

Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI)

Launched

2012

Est. Duration

3 Years

Estimated Total Value

$93,962,955

Region

Northern America

Countries

United States

Commitment by

Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning

Partner(s) of the Commitment Maker(s)

Council on Foundations, Harvard School Of Public Health, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Open Society Foundations, Federal Interagency Workgroup on Healthy Homes

Details

APPROACH
The Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning commits to scaling its Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) to 25 cities in the next three years. This $11.82 million commitment will leverage $250 million in public and private investment, create 25,000 Green & Healthy Homes, 1,550 green jobs, and fund Outcome Brokers across the U.S. These Outcome Brokers serve as neutral parties that navigate the silos, and coordinate integration, collaboration, and data. The 25 cities will be chosen from a pool of 50 cities that have requested designation as a GHHI site and committed to adhere to the GHHI standards, practices, and principles. GHHI is a high quality, high impact approach to housing rehabilitation that drives public and private sector collaboration, streamlines service delivery, integrates energy and healthy housing interventions and develops new community-based green and healthy home contractors. This proven and unique model replaces stand-alone programs with aligned and coordinated investments in healthy housing and energy efficiency that yield significant returns for local governments and families in lower income communities. In its initial 15 pilot cities, GHHI has enrolled 7,000 housing units. Preliminary data shows that the coordinated approach saves over 20 percent per unit when compared to the current, fragmented system. In addition, GHHI programs show an average 67 percent decrease in asthma episodes for resident children; and reduced annual energy costs of $401 per unit. Finally, more than 1,400 individuals are being trained and certified as multi-skilled contractors to perform integrated green and healthy home interventions resulting in average wage increases of $4,500 per year.
GHHI is a national technical assistance provider in partnership with local and federal agencies, including the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Healthy Homes (HUD, CDC, DOE) and community and philanthropic organizations. GHHI will continue to establish a local collaborative in each new jurisdiction to create a single portal of intake and intervention to address health, safety, and energy efficiency in low income housing. GHHI will provide sites with a comprehensive tool kit, developed through work in initial sites that covers comprehensive assessment, integrated interventions, a shared data platform and systems to braid multiple funding streams. GHHI's braiding system produces significant efficiencies by aligning and cording private and public investments in both health and energy home upgrades. GHHI staff will train community residents and contractors, assist jurisdictions in obtaining HUD's Safe and Healthy Homes Investment Partnership (SHHIP) designation (modeled on GHHI), leverage and develop local resources, and coordinate advocacy for a housing standard that establishes a baseline for healthy, safe, and energy efficient housing. Ultimately this strategy will mainstream green and healthy homes practices and principles in hundreds of US cities beyond the CGI commitment.
Furthermore, more than 80 percent of GHHI interventions are conducted in female single head of households. GHHI workforce training efforts will include a special focus on identifying and preparing women from targeted communities for entry into the residential construction and weatherization sectors. The initial goal will be to have at least 20 percent of the contracting pool include women or women-owned businesses. The initiative will also ensure that women-owned contractors are engaged for contractor-focused trainings and GHHI-related business development opportunities.
In addition to the Federal Interagency Working Group on Healthy Homes, GHHI has partnered with the Council on Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Harvard School of Public Health to implement this commitment.
ACTION PLAN
June 2012: Commitment announced.
June - December 2012: Secure balance of national GHHI financial support.
July: Begin development of GHHI Software to help sites identify existing public and private resources that can be leveraged (braided) to address the health, energy, and safety needs identified by a holistic housing assessment. Currently, local governments and agencies have to piece-meal funding to address multiple home-based environmental health and energy deficiencies, causing extended and often incomplete interventions.
September 2012 - December 2012: Hire and train additional GHHI Technical Assistance staff; establish regional offices; and complete selection of 25 new commitment sites and their Outcome Brokers.
September 2012: Begin expansion of national office for the Green & Healthy Homes Innovation Center.
January 2013: Conduct a national convening for new and current sites, followed by regional boot camps and online webinars to ensure comprehension of the GHHI model, workforce development and training approaches, standards, principles and practices; conduct training on cross site communications network, develop peer-to-peer training and webinar schedule.
February - June 2013: National staff assigned to sites to identify and engage a local Outcome Broker to drive creation and implementation of the GHHI work plan. Outcome Broker and local learning networks conduct asset and gap analysis and develop a work plan that includes workforce development and evaluation plans; philanthropic site sponsors are identified; all work executed with specific GHHI standards with clear performance measures to leverage private investment with public resources.
June 2013: Complete GHHI software development.
June 2013- January 2014: 25 sites complete GHHI Compacts and local technical assistance retainer agreements; local philanthropic and private sector support secured; home assessments, integrated interventions, and braided funding system implemented at each site.
August 2013: 25 sites in unit production, initiate reporting.
September 2014: National Green & Healthy Homes Innovation Center opens.
June 2014: 12,500 GHHI homes completed, 775 new community-based green and healthy homes contractors hired by local for profit contractors and nonprofit organizations.
June 2015: 25,000 GHHI homes completed nationwide, 1,550 new community-based green and healthy home contracting jobs created nationwide.

Background

American taxpayers needlessly lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually in medical bills, energy costs, and lost wages due to inefficient and unhealthy housing. Nearly six-million households live with moderate to severe physical housing problems, including lead paint hazards, water intrusion, injury and safety risks, pests, heating, plumbing, and electrical deficiencies. These hazards increase risk for illnesses and injuries including asthma, falls, respiratory problems, and lead poisoning. Children and seniors in low-income housing are hardest hit by home-based environmental health hazards. Besides the physical health toll an at-risk home can have on its inhabitants, the monetary costs of unhealthy homes are enormous. Total annual costs for housing related childhood environmental diseases are estimated to be $54.9 billion: $43.4 billion from lead poisoning, $2.0 billion from asthma, $3 million from childhood cancer, and $9.2 billion for neurobehavioral disorders. In addition, improving energy-efficiency provides financial relief to low-income families, better enabling them to meet basic needs. Families eligible for federal home energy assistance spend 20 percent of their income on energy bills - six times more than the national average. Siloed and fragmented programs undermine the ability of families, and the government programs designed to serve them, to adequately address the high costs of unhealthy and energy inefficient housing. Without a coordinated assessment, intervention, and investment strategy, residents with multiple housing deficiencies have to fill out countless applications and needlessly endure multiple home assessments. Far too often this scattered approach has left hundreds of thousands of homes unable to receive energy efficiency investments due to health and safety issues. These barriers leave the families most in need to be the least likely to receive necessary improvements and upgrades. These fractured systems also reduce opportunities for workers in the housing rehabilitation trades to expand skills and secure higher paying and more reliable work.

Partnership Opportunities

GHHI is seeking financial resources to fund the technical assistance program and establishment of new site Outcome Brokers as well as support for housing remediation.

GHHI is also seeking evaluation and data partners to enhance data collection and cost benefit analysis of the program and intervention outcomes.

GHHI is seeking health and housing policy specialists to develop national standards and policy recommendations.

GHHI is seeking communications and media partners.

GHHI is offering to share best practices on the integration of housing related energy, health, and safety measures.

GHHI is offering hands on, online, and video training to all local collaborative partners. In addition, GHHI will continue a robust series of regional and national conferences for the fields of energy efficiency, health, housing, workforce development, and sustainability.

GHHI is offering training on pay for success / social impact bonds and strategy on incorporating healthcare investment for home interventions.

Progress Reports

June 2016

GHHI has successfully met all of its CGI Commitments. Since 2012, the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative has expanded its work and is now active in 25 GHHI sites including: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Denver, Dubuque, Flint, Greater Syracuse, Jackson, Lansing, Lewiston-Auburn, Marin County, Memphis, New Haven, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Salt Lake County, San Antonio, Springfield, Staten Island, and the State of Rhode Island. These GHHI sites are completing integrated health, rehabilitation and weatherization/energy efficiency housing interventions to create green and healthy homes. New Technical Assistance Specialists and local GHHI Outcome Broker staff have been hired to provide technical assistance and local leadership specifically around the expansion of GHHI to meet the CGI goals. GHHI provides an array of technical assistance support services to new sites and has developed an onboarding process that aids newer sites in implementing GHHIs comprehensive, integrated housing assessment and intervention model.

To foster its objective of creating a national movement to transform how housing services are delivered, GHHI helped HUD in shaping and establishing its bold goal in 2010 of including health and energy interventions as part of HUD supported housing rehabilitation and home repair interventions. In furthering its commitments, GHHI continued to work with HUD to translate those earlier, broader agency goals into specific policy change through the creation of bonus points in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 HUD General NOFAs for all HUD grant program applicants who adopt comprehensive, integrated housing standards into their HUD funded program designs. Influenced by GHHI and HUDs promotion of the GHHI model practices, HUD funded programs nationally are now aligning and braiding resources to deliver healthier, safer, and more energy efficient homes. By advancing this set of principles in partnership with HUD and based upon data provided in HUDs Annual Performance Reports, HUD funds have supported the creation of 316,712 green and healthy homes units since 2012.

GHHI sites encountered challenges during the CGI commitment period in diminished resources coming from traditional federal agencies to support housing renovation work. GHHI and several sites have navigated this challenge by providing a model that is attracting investment from non-traditional sources. In several states that GHHI works in, there were Office of the Attorney General settlement funds (New York, Rhode Island) or Public Service Commission (PSC) utility merger funds that needed to be awarded. By developing a proven systems change model and being ready to nimbly respond to funding opportunities, GHHI and its sites have learned that they have the ability to secure critical gap funding. $38,900,000 in PSC utility merger funds and $4,300,000 in Attorney General settlement funds from these two innovative funding sources have been awarded for implementation of the GHHI integrated home intervention model established in GHHI sites and that is fueling increased unit production and improved housing intervention service delivery for low income families.

To support GHHI unit production goals and increase healthy homes funding, GHHI has also used evidence based practices and strong data and evaluation from its successful GHHI Baltimore asthma program component to provide justification for the development of innovative Pay For Success (PFS) funding in ten additional jurisdictions. A peer reviewed study of GHHI Baltimore units published in the Journal of Environmental Justice found a 66% reduction in asthma hospitalizations, 62% increase in clients reporting no school absences due to asthma, and an 88% increase in participants reporting never having to miss a day of work due to their childs asthma post intervention. By utilizing systematic evaluation practices to capture client health, energy and other outcomes, GHHI has been able to secure funding from the Corporation for National and Community Services Social Innovation Fund to replicate the GHHI Asthma Pay for Success (PFS) model in five other cities (Buffalo, Grand Rapids, Memphis, Salt Lake, and Springfield) as well as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding to replicate the Asthma PFS model in five additional jurisdictions (New York CIty, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and the State of Rhode Island).

GHHI committed to create 1,550 green jobs that incorporated the inclusion of healthy homes standards and training into the field of weatherization and energy efficiency. Through its workforce development and training programs, GHHI has created or retained 1,614 jobs. GHHI sites have enrolled 1,300 individuals in green and home performance related training programs to improve employment opportunities for unemployed community residents and to increase earning capacity for underemployed workers. For example, in GHHI Buffalo, trainees completing comprehensive green jobstraining are averaging a higher wage ($2-$4/hour more) hat results in $4,000-$8,000 increases in annual wages and more household income due to their increased skills.

The GHHI project is continuing beyond the original CGI commitment to scale the GHHI model nationally.