Green Economy Roadmap: The Stories
The past couple of years have been trying, but our country is on the road to recovery. We still have a long way to go, but America is beginning to turn crisis into opportunity — economically, environmentally and socially.
Every day, we hear stories of people from every part of the country sowing the seeds of green prosperity. Some of these stories stem from the unprecedented green investments in President Obama's Recovery Act. Some are the stories of everyday people doing their part to improve their communities. All of the stories are inspiring examples of how green jobs offer real opportunity for prosperity and advancement.
Our "Green Economy Roadmap" plots out dozens of these stories from across America. Below, you can read these stories in text form.
Jump to a state:
AS • AZ • AR • CA • CO • FL • GA • IL • LA • MD • MA • MI • MO • MT • NV • NJ • NY • OR • PA • SD • TN • TX • UT • WA • WY
AMERICAN SAMOA
American Samoa Performs Weatherization for Working People
American Samoa will use its Recovery Act funds to weatherize approximately 225 homes over the next three years. Homes occupied by the elderly, the disabled or families with children will be given priority. The territory will also give preference to households with a high energy burden or large energy use. Weatherization activities will include the installation of cost-effective compact fluorescent lights, solar water heaters, refrigerators, window air conditioners, and low-flow faucets and showerheads. After demonstrating successful implementation of its plan, the territory will receive nearly $360,000 in additional funding, for a total of almost $720,000. American Samoa's Territorial Energy Office (TEO) will oversee the program and perform weatherization services directly, reducing administrative costs.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program $287,804
Website: Click here to learn more.
ARIZONA
SolFocus Cuts Ribbon on Expanded Glassworks Factory in Mesa
Mesa, Arizona
SolFocus is a leading developer of Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV), a type of solar energy technology. Using the 30% manufacturing investment tax credit set aside by the Recovery Act, SolFocus was able to expand its manufacturing floor space by 175% and start a new line of advanced manufacturing equipment. The SolFocus Glassworks facility will be able to employ more 150 fulltime employees a year (a 200% increase from 2008) and increase the plant’s production capacity by over 15 times its 2008 capacity.
Website: Click here to learn more.
ARKANSAS
Arkansas Will Improve More Than 5,000 Low-Income Homes in the Next Three Years
In just three months, Recovery Act investments have improved more than 100 low-income homes in Arkansans, raising living standards while lowering energy costs for the residents. With an annual budget of roughly $3.5 million, Arkansas's weatherization program is usually able to provide energy-efficiency retrofits to 1,000 homes a year. With $48 million from the Recovery Act's Weatherization Assistance Program investments, Arkansas will be able to improve an additional 5,578 homes over the next three years.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program, $48 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
CALIFORNIA
California Green Job Corps Uses Recovery Act Funds to Train Young Workers for Green Jobs
Governor Schwarzenegger launches the California Green Corps. Photo from the governor's website.With a $10 million investment from the U.S. Department of Labor and another $10 million leveraged from its own public-private partnerships, California is funding 11 regional California Green Job Corps pilot programs across the state (including one from the Los Angeles Community College District). These pilot programs will provide 1,500 at-risk youth with career training in energy efficiency, green building, green waste, agriculture and natural resources, solar power, and alternative automotive fuel. Participants will also learn through service opportunities and on-the-job training with Habitat for Humanity.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: U.S. Department of Labor, $10 million
Website: Click here and here to learn more.
Federal Recovery Act Dollars Create Hundreds of Bay Area Jobs
Bay Area, California
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $5 million in grants and low-interest loans that will help bring nearly 500 jobs to the Bay Area and turn contaminated property into land for apartments, retail shops, day care centers and a park. Funds for the revitalization work come from the $1.8 million in federal stimulus money, along with money from the Department's Revolving Loan Fund Program, which offers low-interest loans and grants to clean up contaminated sites known as brownfields.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: $1.8 million from the Environmental Protection Agency, plus revolving loan funds
Website: Click here to learn more.
Berkeley's Rising Sun Energy Center Provides Jobs, Training and Retrofits
Berkeley, California
Rising Sun provides low-to-no-cost retrofit services to Bay Area households, with a focus on serving under-resourced households: moderate- and low-income residents, renters, and non-English speakers. Rising Sun provides green job training and employment to young people and to adults who face barriers to employment. To date, the program has saved households about $2 million in utility costs and removed enough carbon from the air to be the equivalent of 3,000 cars taken off the road.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Berkeley Leads with City-Wide Voluntary Sustainable Energy Financing District
Berkeley, California
Berkeley FIRST is a solar financing program in the City of Berkeley. It provides property owners an opportunity to borrow money from the City’s Sustainable Energy Financing District to install solar photovoltaic electric systems and allows the cost to be repaid over 20 years through an annual special tax on their property tax bill. Only Berkeley property owners who voluntarily participate in the Berkeley FIRST program pay the tax.
Website: Click here to learn more.
L.A. Construction Careers and Green Jobs Policy Provides New Pathways to Prosperity
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles's new Construction Careers Policy will ensure good green jobs for thousands of construction workers and provide middle-class career opportunities to at-risk populations. This is the first program to tie a Project Labor Agreement and local-hire requirements to privately developed projects that receive funding from local government. Its first-in-the-nation status highlights Los Angeles, and the organizations that sponsored the policy, as leaders in the effort to strengthen America’s middle class.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Oakland Starts New Revolving Loan Fund to Retrofit Homes, Create Jobs, and Funnel Benefits into Community
Oakland, California
With nearly $2 million from the Recovery Act's Community Development Block Grant funding, Oakland is seeding a new revolving loan fund to help low- and moderate-income residents weatherize and retrofit their homes. Residents will get interest-free deferred loans to hire licensed and insured contractors who are committed to hiring local Oakland workers (like those in the groundbreaking Oakland Green Jobs Corps training program). Community benefits include weatherization retrofits and energy cost savings for low- and moderate-income homeowners, neighborhood blight reduction, reduction of carbon footprints, and the creation of approximately 108 entry-level jobs.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Community Development Block Grants, $2 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Solar Richmond
Richmond, California
Solar Richmond provides green-collar job training and placement in solar technology. Solar Richmond works closely with diverse partners in city government, the non-profit world and local businesses, in order to foster a green economy in Richmond and bring good, green jobs to its residents.
Website: Click here to learn more.
San Francisco Helps Businesses Upgrade to More Energy-Efficient Ways
San Francisco, California
San Francisco Energy Watch offers businesses and multifamily property owners new energy-efficient equipment and professional services at greatly reduced cost. Participants can save energy and money while at the same time reducing their impact on the environment. The benefits of the program include free on-site assessment to identify energy savings, expert installation of energy-saving equipment, and lower utility bills over the life of the new equipment. The program is a partnership between the City and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and is being implemented by the Department of the Environment.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Bay Area Women Growing Green Businesses, Creating Healthy Jobs
Oakland, California
Over the past decade, WAGES (Women's Action to Gain Economic Security) has built three successful green housecleaning cooperatives that have given hundreds of women the opportunity to become financially secure, gain business skills, and lead healthier, fuller lives. WAGES is currently launching an ambitious effort to significantly expand its co-op network throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to involve 200 or more worker‑owners by 2010. By using a cooperative business model, WAGES helps women pool their skills and work together to succeed. The workers make decisions democratically, and they distribute business profits equitably to all workers. As co-owners of successful businesses, women increase their incomes substantially and help their families move out of poverty.
Website: Click here to learn more.
COLORADO
Recovery Act Fuels Mile High Youth Corps Expansion
Denver, Colorado
Denver-based Mile High Youth Corps (MHYC) places nearly 200 youth each year into green service jobs in land and water conservation, energy-efficiency, and construction. Now, Recovery Act funds are allowing MHYC and five other Youth Corps programs in Colorado to expand. Together, these six programs will engage an additional 238 youth in projects that conserve energy and protect public lands, while preparing them to succeed in the workplace.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Corporation for National and Community Service - $832,831
Website: Click here to learn more.
On the Front Line in the Fight Against Dirty Energy: Veterans Green Jobs
Boulder, Colorado
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Veterans Green Jobs trains veterans in home weatherization and efficiency. The organization launched its first class of 15 trainees in April of 2009, for a nine week Green Jobs Training Program. Trainees learned how to audit a building to identify where energy is being wasted, caulk leaky holes, install energy efficient appliances, and insulate attics. They also learned and worked alongside other veterans, a best practice for supporting veterans’ successful transitions back into civilian life.
Websites: Click here and here to learn more.
FLORIDA
Orlando Utilities Commission Pilots Solar Program
Orlando, Florida
Workers install solar panels.The Orlando Utilities Commission Pilot Solar Program enables homeowners to obtain loans for solar installation and earn credit from their solar energy production. Through the Pilot Solar Program, the Orlando Federal Credit Union provides 0% to 5.5% interest loans for residential and commercial solar systems. The loans can be repaid gradually over time as fixed payments on customers’ utility bills. Any excess electricity generated back to OUC’s electric grid is credited to the homeowner at the full retail rate.
Website: Click here to learn more.
GEORGIA
Let's Raise a Million
Atlanta, Georgia
Let’s Raise a Million, founded by students at Morehouse college, seeks to bring energy-efficiency and education to low-income neighborhoods in Atlanta. The project, now run by students in 8 Atlanta colleges, connects the dots in the communities at greatest risk to climate change impacts. Let’s Raise a Million installs energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs in homes, while educating residents about how they can reduce energy use and save money.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Georgia Partners with AmeriCorps to Create Green-Collar Program
In Georgia, AmeriCorps is using Recovery Act Funds to finance the Georgia Recovery Corps, a one-year special initiative that focuses, in part, on providing Georgians with green construction experience and training. The Georgia Recovery Corps is teaming up with Cobb Housing Incorporated (CHI) to rehabilitate homes, address erosion control, and teach skills in green careers. Participants get training in green building techniques and full-time construction jobs for skilled workers while rehabilitating foreclosed properties. So far, CHI has created 20 jobs for Georgia Recovery Corps members.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Corporation for National and Community Service grant, $476,950
Website: Click here to learn more.
ILLINOIS
Growing Home
Chicago, Illinois
Growing Home provides job training for homeless and low-income individuals in Chicago through a social enterprise business based on organic agriculture. The program provides experiential learning opportunities and employment in the horticulture field as well as a unique job readiness curriculum that helps reintroduce participants back into the workforce.
Website: Click here to learn more.
LOUISIANA
Louisiana 'Leads By Example' with State-Wide Retrofits on University Buildings
Louisiana is using some of its State Energy Program funds for a “Lead By Example” program that will fund energy-efficiency retrofits of state university buildings. This will reduce energy consumption, allow state schools to focus more money on teaching, and create green-collar jobs for Louisiana workers.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: State Energy Program, $71 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
New Orleans Pursues Comprehensive Plan for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
New Orleans, Louisiana
The City of New Orleans is working to pool Recovery Act funds to coordinate and establish energy efficiency retrofit programs. The city’s programs will be based on successful models like Clean Energy Works Portland, the Cambridge Energy Alliance, and Green Jobs - Green Homes New York. Using best practices from these models and mirroring a successful Louisiana Green Job Corps program, the city will work to maximize the demand for services and job growth, and expand pathways out of poverty.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, $600,000. Potentially another $50.7 million from the Weatherization Assistance Program.
Louisiana Green Corps Prepares Youth for Future Green Jobs
Metairie, Louisiana
The LA Green Corps educates youth ages 17-24 in green construction, weatherizing homes, material deconstruction and reuse, and energy-saving techniques. After gaining valuable knowledge about energy efficiency, Corps members put their learning to work in local residents’ homes, making renovations that save residents money on their energy bills and lower global warming pollution. The community learns about saving energy and going green from Corps members, who learn valuable job skills.
Websites: Click here and here to learn more.
MARYLAND
Civic works creates green jobs in weatherization and brownfield remediation
Baltimore, Maryland
The Baltimore-based urban service corps, Civic Works, is creating green jobs through weatherization, green construction, landscaping and brownfield remediation. Their "3E team" provides free residential energy retrofits in low-income homes as well as a fee for service program for higher income homeowners, making homes more affordable and more comfortable in addition to reducing the home's carbon footprint. Thanks to Recovery Act funding, in 2010 Civic Works will weatherize 100 low-income homes for Baltimore's Weatherization Assistance Program. Civic Works also received funds through the Maryland Energy Administration to weatherize 35 transitional homes for adults with disabilities, as well as funding to weatherize an additional 25 low-income homes. Their B'more Green brownfields job training project recruits unemployed and underemployed residents and prepares them for environmental careers in remediation and abatement. They typically run two classes of twenty participants each year and have maintained an 89% job placement rate. B'more Green graduates typically secure employment earning an entry level wage of $12 to $16 per hour.
Recovery Act Funding Streams: Weatherization Assistance Program, Community Development Block Grants and YouthBuild
Website: Click here to learn more.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Goes Green for High Quality Green-Collars Jobs
Boston, Massachusetts
Boston is using $6.5 million in Recovery Act funds to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40,000 metric tons annually while creating 100 high-quality green-collar jobs. These Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds will jumpstart Renew Boston, a public-private partnership aimed at increasing energy-efficiency and alternative-energy services for Boston residents and businesses. As part of the Renew Boston Residential Energy Efficiency Pilot Program, project partner Next Step Living, Inc. will provide more than 150 Boston homes with free professional energy efficiency audits and retrofits.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, $6.5 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
JFYNetWorks trains green-collar workers
Boston, Massachusetts
JFYNetWorks trains green-collar workers.In 2008, the cities of Boston and Cambridge adopted programs to make buildings energy-efficient. JFYNetWorks responded immediately by meeting with energy service companies to determine what green positions needed to be filled. With the support of a $200,000 state Pathways out of Poverty grant, JFY created a new solar installation and assembly training program. The organization will also launch an energy-efficiency training program for conducting energy audits and performing building weatherization. JFY’s green job training now spans a wide range of green jobs: environmental clean-up, energy conservation, and conversion to renewables.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Massachusetts's $1.4 billion Energy Efficiency Plan
Boston, Massachusetts
On October 27, 2009 Massachusetts adopted a $1.4 billion plan that will cut greenhouse gas emissions, create high-quality jobs in the state’s highest-unemployment communities, and provide up-front financing so low-to-moderate income residents can save money and do deep energy-efficiency retrofits on their homes. This is a breakthrough for many partners who worked with the state on the plan, including the Green Justice Coalition, a community-labor-environmental-faith alliance.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, $1.4 billion
Website: Click here to learn more.
MICHIGAN
Detroit Cleans Up Environment and Trains Workers for Clean Energy Economy
Detroit, Michigan
Workers clean up the environment: brownfields remediation, lead/asbestos/mold work, and more.Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ)’s Green Jobs Training Program was recently awarded $96,000 in Recovery Act money. These funds increase the capacity of DWEJ's job training for environmental cleanup (brownfields remediation, lead/asbestos/mold work, and more) and “greenup” (energy audits, weatherization, deconstruction, etc.), targeting unemployed and underemployed Detroit residents. This program includes Detroiters who are most in need of an opportunity to enter the workforce: those returning from jail and people without GEDs. DWEJ has had 100% job placement, and at the end of the year, they will have placed 67 graduates. Next year they plan to graduate and place 75 participants. They had 500 applicants for the first training, and over 600 applicants for the second class. The funding provided by the Recovery Act is helping the program expand, filling a great need in Detroit for technical training for disadvantaged residents.
Recovery Act Investment: $96,000
Website: Click here to learn more.
MISSOURI
Kansas City Uses Recovery Act Funds to Establish a "Green Impact Zone"
Kansas City, Missouri
U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver II has spearheaded an innovative new initative in Kansas City: a "Green Impact Zone". Leveraging $200 million from various Recovery Act funding streams and other local funds, Kansas City will transform a 150-block area in the urban core of the city into a model of green community revitalization. The project will train unemployed residents and ex-parolees for green jobs, weatherize the 2,500 homes in the Green Impact Zone, build a rapid transit bus route, and develop a smart grid energy project.
Recovery Act Funding Streams: Leveraging multiple investments (including the Weatherization Assistance Program) totaling $200 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
MONTANA
Rocky Boy's North Central Montana Water Project
Rocky Boy's Reservation, Montana
Rocky Boy's/Northcentral Montana Regional Water Project received $20 million in stimulus funds to build a treatment plant and install a pipeline that will deliver clean water to an area the size of Delaware. This investment has greatly benefited the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, with the tribally owned Chippewa Cree Construction Corp hiring more than 20 workers. Many others have also gotten jobs indirectly through this investment. Already the reservation is seeing vast improvements both in water quantity and sanitation, reducing the need to boil the water before use. "We can build it faster than Congress can deliver the dollars," Belcourt said.
Recovery Act Investment: $20 million
Websites: Click here and here to learn more.
Warm Hearts Warm Homes
Helena, Montana
Insulation cuts down energy costs.In 2005 Warm Hearts Warm Homes Montana enabled Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) crews to help weatherize 600 low-income homes on Native American reservations. After seeing the impact, Governor Brian Schweitzer (who initiated the statewide program) increased funding in following years. Since the beginning of the program, Corps members have weatherized approximately 4,500 low-, middle-, and fixed-income homes statewide.
Website: Click here to learn more.
NEVADA
Nevada Making Diverse Investments in Energy Efficiency
Nevada is covering a lot of ground with its Recovery Act investments. It is using Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program funds to support local governments' energy-efficiency initiatives, install energy-management systems in state buildings, and equip emergency vehicles with emission-reducing idle-reduction technologies. The state will also replace inefficient traffic signals and street lighting and provide energy management training for government officials.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, $9.6 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
NEW JERSEY
GANE Advances High Labor Standards for Weatherization Work
Newark, New Jersey
The Garden State Alliance for a New Economy (GANE) has been coordinating with national staff at Change to Win and the Laborers Union to raise standards for weatherization work in the largely unorganized residential construction industry. In December 2008, the Laborers presented President-elect Obama with a proposal to dedicate ten billion dollars of weatherization funding to a competitive grant program that will be awarded to cities that set up weatherization programs which hire local residents, pay union-scale wages and benefits, and have strong local hiring requirements.
Website: Click here to learn more.
New Jersey Transforms Blighted Lots into Urban Eco-Village
Newark, New Jersey
New Jersey weatherization workers.The Newark Neighborhood Revitalization Project, managed by the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District (LPCCD), is transforming a low-income neighborhood from blighted lots into an urban eco-village that includes 300 LEED-certified housing units, green-collar jobs, music festivals, historic restoration projects, and the Museum of African American Music. LPCCD recently completed six new LEED-certified buildings, called the Washington Street Mixed Use Buildings.
Additionally, LPCCD launched a new program in February 2008, The Green Collar Apprenticeship Program (GreenCAP). With a commitment to clean energy, sustainable development and well-paying jobs in mind, the program will aid the creation of a local, skilled green collar workforce. Local residents in the program installed solar panels on LPCCD's first housing project. Last spring, LPCCD launched a second green job program, the Green Job Training Program (GJTP) in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Website: Click here to learn more.
New Jersey Creates More Than 150 Green Jobs Fighting Pollution
New Jersey is continuing to establish itself as a leader among the states in green economic development. The state will use $14.4 million in Recovery Act funds to reduce fossil fuel emissions, decrease overall energy use, and improve energy efficiency at the state and local level — all while creating quality jobs. Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funds will provide state and municipal buildings with energy-efficiency upgrades, significantly reducing energy use and emissions while saving or creating more than 150 green jobs.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, $14.4 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
NEW YORK
Weatherization in New York Creates Jobs, Opportunity
New York, New York
Tahlia Williams is a single mother of a 3-year-old son, in Brooklyn, NY. "Construction is something that I wanted to do for a long time," she said. "I had no way of knowing how to get into this field because I always heard it was a man's world."
Now, Tahlia has a job weatherizing homes in New York with the Community Environmental Center (CEC).
CEC is breaking ground on many fronts. It is the state's largest provider of the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), which weatherizes low-income homes. It is also the first WAP provider in the state to sign a contract with a union, the Laborers Local 10. As a union shop, CEC provides good wages and benefits to its employees while gaining access to the skilled workers it needs to respond to the expanded WAP investments in the Recovery Act. And a partnership with Non-Traditional Employment for Women is helping Local 10 recruit more women and historically disadvantaged workers for good, green jobs in weatherization.
Thanks to these partnerships and the Recovery Act's large investment in WAP, more low-income New Yorkers can benefit from services that lower their energy bills and make their homes more comfortable in the extreme temperatures of winter and summer. Taken together, these improvements to New York homes will make a real dent in the city's greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of which come from buildings. In November 2009, Good Magazine partnered with Green For All to tell the story of CEC in the short video below.
Recovery Act Investment: $16 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Long Island Program Helps Homeowners Go Green with No Start Up Costs
Long Island, New York
Long Island Green Homes Initiative is an innovative approach to financing that will make green retrofits readily available to homeowners — at no up-front cost, and without assuming new debt. By expanding the definition of "solid waste" to include wasted energy based on its carbon content, Babylon has freed up $2 million from its solid waste management fund to pay for the up-front costs of the improvements. Residents then pay the city back over time with a portion of the money they save on their energy bills. Overall, they see a modest decrease in their energy bills while the money is being paid back, and a more substantial one after that. Residents never have to pay out of pocket for the improvements. And the obligation to repay runs with the property, so landlords, tenants, sellers, and buyers don't need to worry about it when they move in or out. With 65,000 homes in the town, Babylon expects this creative, self-financing program to reduce carbon emissions and home energy use by 20%-40%, and energy costs for homeowners by an average of $1,160 every year. All this while creating 6,600 new green-collar jobs!
Website: Click here to learn more.
Green Worker Cooperatives
South Bronx, New York
Green Worker Cooperatives is bringing community-owned green businesses to the South Bronx. The organization incubates worker-owned and environmentally friendly cooperatives to address high unemployment and decades of environmental racism in the South Bronx.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Green Jobs/Green Homes New York Will "Green" One Million Homes and Create Thousands of Good Jobs
Albany, New York
The Green Jobs/Green Homes NY program is a landmark statewide initiative to establish a revolving capital fund and make one million homes energy efficient in five years. This program will significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, save families money on their energy bills, and create tens of thousands of green, living-wage jobs.
Website: Click here to learn more.
OREGON
Portland Launches Groundbreaking Home-Retrofit Program and Community Workforce Agreement
Portland, Oregon
Using money from the federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (EECBG), Portland is launching a revolving loan fund that will help residents pay for energy-efficiency improvements to their homes. Residents have no up-front costs, and pay the loans back from the savings on their energy bills. This program will save energy, save money and create 10,000 local jobs. A groundbreaking Community Workforce Agreement will ensure that those jobs are available to workers from low-income and other disadvantaged communities.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, $1.1 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Uses Recovery Act to Create Opportunities for Minority-, Woman- and Disabled-Owned Firms
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia's plan for its $16 million in Weatherization Assistance Program funds includes an aggressive effort to create new opportunities for small minority-, woman- and disabled-owned firms (MWDBEs) in weatherization and energy-efficiency retrofits. City outreach efforts have already yielded remarkable MWDBE participation in the weatherization program, which grants these firms access to customized technical assistance services. Philadelphia aims to help these firms begin providing weatherization services in the private market, creating a new business opportunities for them while expanding access to energy-efficiency services.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program, $16 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Philadelphia Hires 200 New Workers for Weatherization, Certifies Hundreds More.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Workers make a building more energy efficient.Two hundred new hires will be trained at Philadelphia’s Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA) with funding from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. And an additional hundreds of experienced weatherization technicians will be certified by the State to weatherize the homes of low-income residents this year. Soon the state will also require Building Performance Institute (BPI) certification, which ECA will provide, a valuable asset to workers and a step up the career ladder in this field.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Philly Creating New Solar Installation School
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is using Workforce Investment Act funding from the Recovery Act to support a new solar installation school, run by the Maxwell Education Group. The first 25 students to attend the school started the program in September 2009 and will graduate in November 2009. The students learn basic math and job readiness skills along with basic electrical skills, solar system design, and panel installation and system wiring techniques. Students from this program are proving highly sought after, with several securing full-time employment in their new field weeks before their graduation, and many more moving into externships to provide on-the-job experience. All of the students in the program were unemployed when they began the training, and several were ex-offenders.
Recovery Act Investment: $150,000
Website: Click here to learn more.
Pittsburgh Coalition Comes Together to Create More Than 100 Green Jobs through Recovery Funds
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
A coalition in Pittsburgh is creating a targeted approach to strategically utilize Weatherization Assistance Program and other Recovery Act funds. The plan is to build workforce pipelines for weatherization workers and achieve economies of scale by focusing on five high-energy-use/low-income areas of Allegheny County. The coalition projects that Recovery funds will create 100-150 jobs and is working to leverage this opportunity to create jobs and business opportunities in the private sector. The coalition is made up of the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, utilities, foundations, the local Workforce Investment Board, Community Action Agencies, and community-based organizations including GTECH.
Recovery Act Investment: $25 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
SOUTH DAKOTA
South Dakota Using Recover Act Funds to Dramatically Reduce Energy Consumption
South Dakota is using funds from the federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (EECBG) to make the state dramatically more energy efficient, aiming to reduce overall energy consumption to 75% of 1990 levels by 2012. The state will invest the bulk of its EECBG funds in local governments based on factors like energy savings, job creation, long-term sustainability of the project, maximum benefit to the community, and local financial participation. All told, South Dakota will lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce energy use, and save or create more than 100 full-time jobs.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, $9.6 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
TENNESSEE
Tennessee Plans to Weatherize More Than 10,5000 Homes in the Next Three Years
The Recovery Act is giving a huge boost to Tennessee's green economy. Using almost $40 million in Weatherization Assistance Program funds, Tennessee will weatherize more than 10,500 homes over the next three years. The state is prioritizing households occupied by the elderly, the disabled, and families with children under six years old, as well as those who have been on a weatherization waiting list for more than three years.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program, $39.6 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
TEXAS
In Austin, Recovery Act Puts At-Risk Youth to Work Building Green Homes
Austin, Texas
Texas rallies for green jobs outside of the State Fair.The Recovery Act is helping American Youth Works expand its award-winning, project-based education program Casa Verde Builders (CVB). By giving them the opportunity to build single-family, energy-efficient, affordable housing in East Austin, CVB provides at-risk young people with hands-on construction skills and applied academics. Recovery Act funds are also helping American Youth Works develop an entire Green Collar Workforce Training Center.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Leveraging various Recovery Act funds for youth, service and conservation totaling $1.16 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Houston Program Lowers Energy Costs for Residential Neighborhoods and Improves Environmental Quality
Houston, Texas
Energy efficiency means lower energy bills.Houston's Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP) began as a program of the City of Houston to offer weatherization installation assistance to the low-income neighborhood of Pleasantville. By reducing the amount of energy used in residential neighborhoods, the program helps to reduce air emissions from power plants in the Houston area and improves the air quality indoors and out, resulting in better human and environmental health. Each household participating saves a six-month average of $335 in energy costs. Since the Pilot Program in Pleasantville, the City and CenterPoint have weatherized over 5,300 homes in the communities of Lindale Park, Scott Terrace, Sunny Side, and Denver Harbor. The Residential Energy Efficiency Program is offered at no cost and the installations are approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and may reduce electricity bills.
Website: Click here to learn more.
Houston Invests in Energy-Efficient Meters and Technology for Residents
Houston, Texas
Reliant Energy will get $19.9 million from the federal stimulus package to promote products that will use advanced meters to help customers monitor their power use and choose billing plans based on the times of day they use electricity. Services include a weekly e-mail update on electric usage, an in-home device to monitor electricity use and costs in real-time, ways to communicate with home appliances designed to work with the new technology, and retail power plans that charge less for electricity customers use during times of low demand.
Website: Click here to learn more.
UTAH
Utah Uses Recovery Act to Ramp Up Weatherization Efforts
Salt Lake Community College students take a break from learning about solar PV design and installation.Utah is taking full advantage of the Recovery Act's investment in the Weatherization Assistance Program, hiring 77 additional weatherization workers and contractors. This more than doubles the state's prior staffing levels, and is just the beginning of Utah's plans to ultimately create 120-150 new positions. Utah expects this new capacity to allow it to surpass the minimum 4,466 residential energy efficiency retrofits it must complete to satisfy federal requirements.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program, $38 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
WASHINGTON
Washington Uses Recovery Act Funds to Build Its Clean Energy Industry
Using money from the federal State Energy Program (SEP), Washington State will upgrade homes and businesses across the state to make them more energy efficient. The state will also use SEP funds to spur the energy-efficiency and renewable-energy industries. All told, Washington's Recovery Act investments will create thousands of new, quality green jobs, train new workers for those jobs, and retrofit 100,000 homes and businesses.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: State Energy Program, $58.5 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Laborers Union Provides Weatherization Training to Seattle Area Residents
Kingston, Washington
The Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA)’s Weatherization Training Program is partnering with Got Green to offer first-time training for 20 people. 10 are members of LIUNA and 10 are young men with disadvantaged backgrounds. On Nov. 5, 2009 the first class graduates from a two-week program that offers credentials in entry-level, weatherization technician/installer core competencies.
Seattle Prepares Workers for Lifelong Skills and Provides Pathways Out of Poverty
Seattle, Washington
Located at the intersection of Seattle’s most diverse neighborhoods, Seattle Vocational Institute Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (SVI PACT) is an effective pre-apprenticeship training program focusing on low-income minorities and women. An often overlooked step in the training process, pre-apprenticeship training addresses the skills gaps that prevent acceptance into construction trade apprenticeships. The PACT model has been extremely successful: 90% of students graduate, 90% of graduates enter trade apprenticeships, and the retention rate for PACT-trained apprentices is 10% higher than the national average.
Website: Click here to learn more.
WYOMING
Wyoming to Get More Energy Efficient
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Wyoming will use $9.5 million in Recovery Act funds to make a wide range of facilities more energy efficient, including facilities owned by local governments, tribal entities, non-profit organizations and joint powers boards. These funds, from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, will pay for insulation, air sealing, attic and ceiling improvements, upgraded lighting, insulation and sealing of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) ductwork, the replacement of boilers/furnaces, and the installation of on-demand water heaters, among other measures. These investments will create jobs, cut energy costs, and reduce the harmful emissions that lead to pollution and climate change.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, $9.5 million
Website: Click here to learn more.
Northern Arapaho Tribe Poised to Lower Energy Costs for Indigenous Community
Wind River, Wyoming
The Recovery Act's investment in the Weatherization Assistance Program will allow the Northern Arapaho Tribe to weatherize about 125 homes over the next three years on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The program will prioritize homes that most need these improvements - homes with emergency or life-threatening conditions, homes of the elderly or disabled, homes of families with young children under six, and households with high energy burdens. If it successfully implements its plan, the tribe will receive almost $480,000 in additional funding for a total of more than $950,000.
Recovery Act Funding Stream: Weatherization Assistance Program, $382,484
Website: Click here to learn more.
