As the federal agency dedicated to creating strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is on the front lines of the nation’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis, build resilient communities, and address environmental injustice. Under the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government approach, HUD is working across the federal government to identify investment opportunities under the historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to ensure America’s homes are healthier and more resilient, with increased access to energy efficient appliances and improved insulation, heating, cooling, and ventilation systems to address extreme temperatures, air pollution, and contaminants.

These substantial investments in housing, extend beyond HUD programs, providing tools, opportunities and incentives for partners and stakeholders across the nation to advance climate-resilient and energy efficient homes for the future.

• HUD is leading investments in housing. In 2023, the Department awarded $121.4 million in new loans and grants to renovate the homes of 5,860 households for low-income families, seniors, and persons with disabilities at 44 HUD-Assisted Multifamily Housing properties— as part of its IRA funded Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP). These investments will support working families and modest income individuals by making upgrades that could otherwise be cost-prohibitive to increase resilience and energy efficiency while enhancing their lives at home by structurally modernizing the homes. GRRP is the first program that simultaneously invests in energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, climate resilience, and low embodied carbon materials in HUD-assisted multifamily housing. Over the next year, HUD will award the remainder of the $800 million in grant and loan subsidy funding and $4 billion in loan commitment authority provided by the IRA, helping to future proof more HUD Multifamily assisted housing, benefitting residents and furthering environmental justice.

• To better target opportunities to save energy and water, cut costs, and reduce emissions in affordable housing, HUD launched an initiative earlier this year to collect and assess energy and water usage data from HUD-assisted multifamily housing. Funded under IRA, this $42.5 million investment aims to assist some roughly 9,000 Multifamily assisted housing property owners in understanding energy and water usage at their properties, providing critical baseline information often needed by owners to access climate related funding resources.

• To help users identify those funding resources, in September 2023, HUD announced the launch of the web-based Funding Navigator, a searchable database of funding available under IRA, BIL and other resources that support climate related investments in housing and communities. A component of President Biden’s commitment to invest in America, this interactive tool connects program participants to funding opportunities across federal agencies to support climate resiliency, energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, healthy housing, workforce development and environmental justice in HUD supported communities, programs, and properties.

• Additionally, HUD released the Climate Resource for Housing Supply Framework as a part of the agency’s work to increase the supply of affordable and sustainable housing. The framework aims to raise awareness about available funding for addressing the housing shortage and climate change, while also showcasing methods to increase project viability by integrating new funding sources with existing resources.

• To make it easier for HUD supported housing and residents to understand and participate in solar programs, HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing and Public and Indian Housing published guidance on the treatment of financial benefits from community solar energy programs or on-site solar facilities. This helps residents benefit from the expansion of clean energy programs like the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Investment Tax Credit Low-Income Solar Adders (48e) and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, two programs that defer to HUD’s guidance on solar participation benefits.

• HUD also partnered with the Department of Energy (DOE) to promote the Buildings Upgrade Prize (Buildings UP), an initiative by the DOE Building Technologies Office to build capacity to accelerate equitable, widespread energy efficiency and efficient electrification building upgrades across the country. In October 2023, DOE awarded 33 Phase I Equity Track grants of $400,000, over 85% of all Equity Track grants, for innovative partnerships to scale energy efficiency building upgrades/ electrification in low- and moderate-income communities. This investment will help support the transformation of existing U.S. buildings into more energy-efficient and clean energy-ready homes, commercial spaces, and communities.

HUD is helping to increase awareness around how to build for the future by collaborating with other agencies on trainings, webinars and other events focused on housing and community development.

• In February 2023, HUD’s Office of Housing invited DOE to participate in housing counseling trainings with HUD’s housing counselors on the key role of energy efficiency in boosting housing affordability and improving health, safety, and comfort. The trainings also included the value of incentive programs, loan products, rebates, and other resources to help renters, homebuyers, and homeowners achieve cost savings and build wealth through energy efficiency and guidance on how to navigate federal, state and local programs in their region, including various IRA initiatives.

• In June 2023, HUD, as part of its Housing Innovation Showcase, hosted a pre-showcase session at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. focused on “energy efficiency, resilience, and decarbonization,” bringing together panelists from DOE, EPA, and industry stakeholders to discuss strategies to decarbonize the built environment. Panelists and speakers shared new technologies and strategies that can reduce structures’ energy costs and carbon footprint and highlighted recent developments under IRA and BIL.

• As part of the National Initiative to Advance Building Codes (NIABC), a whole-of-government initiative to align minimum codes and standards for buildings funded through federal agency programs, HUD is meeting its obligations. HUD has published its Resilient Building Codes Toolkit, bringing transparency and clarity to building codes, especially with respect to resilience. In May 2023, HUD published a proposed notice with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to update its minimum energy code standards. Energy cost savings from the proposed updates are estimated to be almost 35% for single-family or low-rise multifamily housing homes and will generate an estimated reduction of 2.2 million metric tons of CO2.

HUD is also part of the Thriving Communities Initiative, a joint agency effort between the U.S. Department of Transportation and HUD to provide place-based technical assistance to communities to plan and transform infrastructure and community development projects. It provides technical assistance, planning, and capacity building to ensure that disadvantaged communities adversely or disproportionately affected by environmental, climate, and human health policy outcomes have the technical tools and organizational capacity to compete for Federal aid and deliver quality infrastructure projects that enable their communities and neighborhoods to thrive.

Investing in nature, particularly in nature-deprived communities, advances HUD’s broader goal for resilient, equitable, inclusive community development. HUD funding can be used for nature-based solutions and urban forestry, decreasing the heat island effect, increasing resilience, and improving access to open space and nature. In September, HUD was excited to see almost half (50%) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nearly 400 recipients of funding under the $1 billion Urban Forestry Grants awarded to HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) communities, expanding access to trees and green spaces in communities and neighborhoods nationwide through the Investing in America agenda.