This summer, Congress passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. Recent state and local efforts underway from Montana to Colorado to Pennsylvania also reflect this: Bipartisan momentum exists to develop real solutions that address the nation’s housing shortage and rising unaffordability.
Contrast this with the state of climate policy, which has stalled in many places, and in some cases is even moving backwards. This, despite the reality that we are living in a hotter climate than ever recorded in modern history, with rapidly accelerating extreme weather disasters driven by climate change.
Together, the reality is that the climate crisis and the housing crisis are both converging in American homes – and together they are exacerbating unaffordability. Families aren’t experiencing these challenges one at a time. They’re experiencing rising rents, unaffordable home insurance, soaring utility bills, deferred maintenance, unsafe indoor air, longer commutes, and more climate-driven disasters all at once. Treating these as separate policy problems produces fragmented solutions.
And yet, the climate movement and the housing movement often find themselves talking past each other, or even framing their goals as being in competition. Housing advocates worry that climate policies will make homes more expensive to build or preserve. Climate advocates worry that pro-housing policies will weaken hard-won environmental protections.
But choosing between addressing the housing crisis versus the climate crisis is a false choice. Housing stability is not simply a social policy objective, it is also good climate policy.
When families are displaced by rising housing costs or evictions, they often move farther from jobs and transit, increasing transportation costs and greenhouse gas emissions. When affordable housing deteriorates because repairs are deferred, emissions remain high and residents are left with unaffordable energy bills, unhealthy indoor air, and homes that are increasingly vulnerable to heat, flooding, or wildfires. And housing policies that prioritize the lowest upfront construction costs without considering long-term operating costs can lock families into decades of higher utility bills, expensive future retrofits, and unhealthy living conditions.
Fortunately, there is another path. An integrated approach – aligned with the traditional “3 Ps” in housing policy – combines four complementary strategies:
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Produce more affordable and climate-ready homes. America desperately needs more good-quality housing. We must accelerate the construction of affordable, climate-ready homes in existing cities and neighborhoods. This can reduce transportation costs (and emissions) along with climate risks such as wildfires that are more common when building on undeveloped land. Building efficient, climate-friendly, and healthy housing today can also be less expensive than typical construction. For example, climate-ready all-electric homes are both cheaper and faster to build than those with gas piping, and are certainly less expensive than home retrofits tomorrow.
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Preserve and repair existing affordable housing. The cheapest affordable home is generally the one that already exists, often costing one-half to two-thirds as much as building a new affordable unit. But millions of existing affordable homes are in disrepair and at risk of further deterioration or climate damage. Preserving and repairing existing housing, while incorporating climate measures like energy efficiency and electrification, can improve health, lower utility bills, and extend the useful life of the current affordable housing stock.
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Protect residents from rising costs and displacement. While building more housing is necessary over the long-term, we must also ensure that current residents can remain in their homes. Tenant protections are critical to ensure existing residents can stay put. Energy upgrades and building decarbonization should never become a pathway to rent spikes, “renovictions,” or displacement. Policies such as just cause eviction protections, harassment protection, and right-to-return are not peripheral to climate policy; they are essential to its success. And retrofit programs must be designed with protections to ensure that voluntary energy upgrades do not lead to rising rents or evictions.
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Build partnerships across the housing and climate sectors. Durable change requires durable coalitions. Climate and environmental organizations, affordable housing advocates, public health leaders, labor organizations, community groups, home builders, and local governments each bring pieces of the solution. When these sectors work together instead of competing for attention and funding, they create policies that are both more ambitious and more politically resilient.
As new partnerships emerge in cities across the country, a new approach to integrated housing-climate solutions is already underway. For example:
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Cincinnati’s BuildReady initiative offers pre-approved permits for middle housing that incorporates energy efficiency and electrification measures, which will help to increase housing being built in walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods. The goal is to provide more affordable homes with lower utility bills, cleaner indoor and outdoor air, and reduced transportation costs for residents.
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Chicago’s Green Social Housing Ordinance deploys $135 million in bond funding to finance mixed-income housing development that adheres to the City’s green building standards, which decrease carbon emissions, lower utility bills, and reduce residents’ exposure to poor indoor air quality. At least 30% of the units will be permanent affordable housing.
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Philadelphia’s HERE 4 Climate Justice coalition successfully advocated for Mayor Parker’s $2 billion H.O.M.E. Initiative to direct funding to home repairs, remediation, energy efficiency, and electrification upgrades for the low-income households burdened by high utility bills and extreme weather. The initiative aims to create and preserve 30,000 housing units in Philadelphia.
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Burlington, Vermont’s Weatherization Ordinance is designed to ensure that rental properties keep tenants warm in the winter and cool in summer, with lower energy bills that also help the city achieve its net zero energy goals. Owners of rental buildings with high energy use are required to implement weatherization measures such as insulation and air sealing.
Each of these examples reflects the same underlying principle: Housing affordability and climate action reinforce one another when designed together. Housing affordability and stability are key elements of climate progress. Averting climate disaster is a key element of housing stability and community resilience.
Across both housing and climate efforts, success will ultimately depend on whether families are healthier, living in safer homes, paying lower energy bills and transportation costs, and can continue to thrive in the communities they call home.
Matthew Vasilakis is Acting Executive Director of the Building Electrification Institute. Matthew joined BEI in 2022 to support its mission to equitably transition communities to a healthy, prosperous, fossil fuel-free future. He previously served as the Co-Director of Policy at Climate Action Campaign in San Diego, where he led a team of bold climate justice advocates and organizers working to secure various climate, equity, housing, land use, transportation and zero waste policies.
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