TODAY’S STUDY: WEATHERIZING HOUSES COULD MAKE THEM HEALTHIER, SAFER HOMES

Even if a house is not a home, it does not have to be an energy pit. The 2009 Recovery Act alloted $5 billion to help folks upgrade their insulation, windows, doors, lighting and heating/cooling systems. It is turning out to be even more than win-win legistlation.

Yes, homeowners have warmer, brighter houses and lower utility bills and the nation has reduced its consumption of electricity-generating resources. But in doing a massive renovation of the nation's neighborhoods, federal agencies discovered, as detailed in the report highlighted below, that taking on additional challenges like making houses lead paint-free, replacing their frayed electrical systems, and freeing them of pests makes them not only more efficient but safer and healthier as well.

By driving such opportunites, the Obama administration's landmark (and financial-crash-stopping) Recovery Act legislation is becoming a win-win-win proposition.

It is another early indication that, in history's big picture, the accomplishments of the Obama first term will loom large.

To say nothing of the fact that Obama got Osama.

Healthy Housing Opportunities During Weatherization Work
Jonathan Wilson and Ellen Tohn, March 2011 (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Executive Summary

Five Key Observations from the Report

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) commissioned this report to provide an overview of health and safety practices currently followed by the network of organizations that provide weatherization services for low-income families under DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). The report’s key findings and recommendations may be used to advise the WAP on ways to structure new guidance to continually improve DOE services for low-income clients by optimizing the work done to improve the health and safety of clients without exceeding permissible expenditures. The report will also help DOE inform the federal Inter-Agency Healthy Homes Work Group that convened in 2009 to identify ways to maximize inter-agency coordination among federal programs and funding sources, and to streamline the provision of health, safety, and housing related services nationwide.

The report illustrates how front-line weatherization service providers have developed creative and effective means of addressing many health and safety issues. Despite innovation, however, many homes they encounter in the field have structural or other challenges that prevent energy efficiency work and/or would make energy efficiency upgrades ineffective. These challenges are the starting point from which the report explores practical and viable solutions for addressing health and safety issues encountered by weatherization workers in the field.

The report is based on interviews with 44 state-level WAP administrators (grantees) and 42 local weatherization agencies that perform weatherization work (subgrantees) from all regions of the country. The National Center for Healthy Housing conducted these interviews, which resulted in the following key findings that emerged from the data:

1. The deferral rate on homes due to serious and unresolved structural repairs or health and safety issues averages 10% – 15% nationwide. However, some cities experience deferral rates exceeding 50%. The main reasons for these deferrals is that there is not enough funding to deal with significant structural issues that fall outside the funding scope of the Weatherization Assistance Program, there is difficulty accessing alternative funding, and/or the weatherization crews on the jobs lack the skills required to address the structural or health and safety problems encountered.

2. While other sources of federal funding exist for many of the health and safety repairs that DOE weatherization crews encounter, these sources are often difficult for weatherization agencies to access, are quickly depleted, and/or have different eligibility criteria.

3. DOE allows states to determine, within reason, what portion of funds they spend on health and safety measures. Grantees (state-level weatherization agencies) and subgrantees (local service providers) would like DOE to provide additional guidance regarding eligible health and safety expenses and define how WAP funds can be used to address health and safety issues and repairs.

4. As training for weatherization workers becomes more standardized, industry professionals also want to focus on better ways to share information with one another to streamline services and increase the efficiency with which they are performed.

5. DOE allows its grantees flexibility in setting funding allowances for health and safety measures. Unfortunately, no common reporting criteria occur to track health and safety performance measures, successful referrals, or the durability of weatherization repairs. DOE does not have national reporting requirements, although many states have established their own reporting criteria.

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Summary of Report Recommendations

The opportunities for standardizing and funding health and safety repairs cluster into six basic strategies. Based on interview responses, this report recommends that DOE:

1. Continually enhance existing WAP guidance and resources.

2. Support and disseminate innovative strategies and best practices.

3. Help programs better use current resources to address health and safety repairs.

4. Promote improved leveraging of non-DOE funds and more effective partnering with other federal agencies to address health and safety problems.

5. Improve federal coordination to create incentives for integrating energy as well as health upgrades in low-income homes.

6. Assist grantees in identifying opportunities for collaboration to leverage non-governmental funding to supplement weatherization programs in order to correct health and safety problems.

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Recommendations by relevant section of the following report:

Section 4 – Deferrals of Units: To address and reduce deferral rates:

i. More effectively leverage alternate resources

ii. Highlight leveraging opportunities other programs have accessed to create stable and sustainable integrated funding

iii. Explore “carrots” that will encourage local providers to collaborate

iv. Create additional flexible funding sources to support health, safety, and structural repairs.

Section 5 – Referrals to Other Programs and Other Funding Sources: To help state and local programs streamline their referral process and better access alternate funding sources:

i. Highlight the range of possible leveraging opportunities by showcasing programs that have successfully worked with these funding sources to create stable and sustainable integrated funding

ii. Promote common eligibility criteria across federal programs

iii. Devise incentives for weatherization providers to access funding offered by federal partners

iv. Create an “opportunity fund” for weatherization programs to correct health and safety problems

v. Support a smaller supplemental grant fund that focuses on roof repair and replacement.

Section 6 – Guidance and Clarification on Health and Safety Measure Eligibility and Spending Limits: To help state and local weatherization programs clarify the guidance under which they operate, and thereby streamline delivery of health and safety repairs during the weatherization process:

i. Clarify overall health and safety expenditure caps and allowable expenses

ii. Develop and disseminate health and safety and durability performance measures

iii. Measure weatherization generated improvements, and improvements that result from successful referrals

iv. Improve federal coordination to create incentives for integrating energy and health upgrades in low-income homes

v. Advocate for a broader grant program to supplement healthy homes repairs across multiple federal programs.

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Section 7 – Training and Information Sharing: To help state and local weatherization programs improve training and information sharing internally and across the network:

i. Clarify caps on health and safety expenditures and eligible expenses during training and provide updates to this information as continuing education support for workers that have already undergone training

ii. Develop a performance measure that documents health and safety improvements and the durability of the work that is performed

iii. Identify, profile, and disseminate information about innovative strategies that program managers are using across the country

iv. Provide additional information in training courses about key health and safety issues

v. Standardize training and procedures surrounding client health and education.

Section 8 – Program Metrics: To help DOE quantify the health and safety improvements that occur during weatherization, and to include this data in the overall program metrics, recommendations include:

i. Develop performance measures to document health and safety improvements

ii. Create a process for tracking successful referrals

iii. Track how the health and safety improvement affects the lifespan of the weatherization improvement.

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Introduction

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) serves low-income families by making their homes more energy efficient in order to reduce energy costs. WAP operates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Native American tribes, and overseas U.S. territories through a network of more than 1,000 local weatherization providers. WAP first began weatherizing homes in 1976, and since 2001, has weatherized an average of 100,000 homes per year. In each home, the weatherization work reduces average annual energy bills by $413 and reduces gas heating consumption by 32%.1

In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) allocated $5 billion to WAP to fund weatherization work for a three-year period. Congress also increased the amount of funds permitted on weatherization per home to $6,500—an increase of $3,000. This funding increase allows grantees to provide deeper and more comprehensive energy efficiency measures. Under ARRA, the program weatherized nearly 325,000 homes by the end of 2010.

Since WAP’s inception, DOE has required that the repair work primarily focus on a home’s energy efficiency, but allows some of the budget to be used to improve a home’s health and safety. Out of the entire weatherization budget for a home, crews typically spend an average of 10% of their WAP funds on health and safety improvements. They are able to repair about a third of the health and safety issues they encounter (see Appendix A).

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The Report: Methodology, Limitations, and Organization

This report is a result of DOE engaging the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) to review existing WAP policies, guidance, and training, and to interview a broad subset of state WAP grantees and local subgrantees from across the nation to get a strong and representative sample of the issues they encounter related to health and safety. NCHH conducted the research for this report in the summer and fall of 2010 to gauge how grantees and subgrantees interpret and incorporate existing health and safety guidance and practices in their weatherization work, and wrote the report in the winter of 2010 – 2011. A key element in the report is its evaluation of opportunities for expanding the program’s ability to address health and safety issues in the low-income homes it serves.

As a result, the report reflects the industry as it existed before WAP issued updated Weatherization Guidance, in its Weatherization Program Notice 11-6, on January 12, 2011.

During the interviews conducted for this report, grantees and subgrantees shared questions and confusions they had about policies and training, as well as innovations and funding opportunities that they often employ to carry out this work. In addition, the interviews provided numerous recommendations for standardizing and streamlining the focus on health and safety improvements, and clarity on how addressing certain health and safety repairs can allow weatherization work to proceed.

NCHH examined the plan that each state grantee submitted to receive its allocation of ARRA funding. Although each grantee is required to have a Health and Safety Plan, typically this appears in an abbreviated form in the greater State Plan document, which is open to public comment. NCHH accessed each State Plan that was available online to assess the state’s caps on health and safety expenses and any unique features of its specific Health and Safety Plans.

In addition to studying state and local program materials, NCHH contacted the 51 state-level grantees (all 50 states plus the District of Columbia), and spoke directly with 44 state weatherization managers/staff and representatives from 42 local programs. These interviews were conducted on a voluntary basis and provided an assessment of on-the-ground practices while eliciting perspectives, concerns, and suggestions about health and safety repairs in the larger context of weatherization work.

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It is important to note that the local programs that NCHH evaluated were not selected randomly, and therefore may not be a statistical representation of the more than 1,000 local weatherization programs currently working in the United States and its territories. Instead, NCHH identified candidates for local interviews by asking state grantees for the names of any subgrantees who actively address health and safety problems. The resulting interviews and evaluations primarily focused on:

• Deferral rates

• Referrals and other funding sources

• Health and safety measure eligibility and allowable spending limits

• Information sharing.

The Opportunity at Hand

When weatherization crews visit a home to complete energy upgrades and repairs, they face a unique opportunity to dramatically improve the home’s safety as well as the occupants’ health. Many weatherization program managers emphasize that their clients “might not see another crew for the next 10 years,” and that for many families “we might be the first and last social service provider visiting this home.”

The number of homes that receive weatherization modifications eclipses the quantity of homes most other federal housing repair and rehabilitation programs work on each year.

Because they work with so many homes, weatherization crews are uniquely positioned to dramatically improve health and safety concerns that are present in low-income homes, but to do so, they will need:

• Additional guidance and training from DOE regarding the health and safety measures that should be improved and that DOE permits in a client’s home

• More information about leveraging non-DOE funds to address problems they encounter

• Administrative and legislative support to improve home delivery systems.

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Overview of Health and Safety Policies, Plans, and Practices

States submit proposed health and safety spending limits, or “caps,” on the overall weatherization plans that they provide to DOE, which DOE project officers then approve.

In these plans, the states set the amount or percentage of funds that can be spent on health and safety repairs out of a home’s entire weatherization budget. In addition, while DOE stipulates that the bulk of the money be spent on work to improve the home’s energy efficiency, it does not mandate minimum or maximum dollar amounts or percentages that can be spent for health and safety. This allows states to customize their own policies to account for regional differences in homes or areas where homes are located.

Federal guidance is designed to be flexible. There is no set amount to be spent on any home. As a result, any limits or percentages identified in state plans set out an “average” fund that is allowed. Some homes may require no financial investment for health and safety modifications, while others may require significant investment. The states’ health and safety budgets try to anticipate what the total cost could be for the number of homes to be weatherized in a program year, and then divide that cost to create a “percentage,” or cost, for the home. Historically, the 10% figure has been used as a guide. When a state requires a percentage beyond that amount, additional documentation is required in the state plan to justify the higher level…

Within this framework, states have traditionally established health and safety procedures and spending limits for subgrantees in one of the following five ways:

1. Capping the total percentage of subgrantee funds that may be used for health and safety (but allowing flexibility on a per-unit basis)

2. Capping the percentage of funds that may used for health and safety at each weatherized dwelling

3. Capping the average health and safety expenditure permitted at each dwelling (e.g., not more than an average of $500/unit), determined as an average across the entire program

4. Capping the maximum health and safety expenditure permitted for each dwelling

5. Limiting the average health and safety expenditure (per house and across the program), as well as setting a per unit maximum dollar amount that can be spent on health and safety repairs.

About two-thirds of the states evaluated in this report define their limits as either a percentage of program expenses or a percentage of the allowable per-unit average maximum for weatherization services. About 20% of the states reported the limit as a dollar amount. The remaining 15% of states did not specify a method of controlling expenses in the documents available...

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Conclusion

This report provides a snapshot of weatherization program activities related to health and safety during the summer and fall of 2010. The picture is hopeful, as interviews with 44 state weatherization programs and 42 local weatherization providers demonstrate that weatherization programs across the country tenaciously strive to provide their clients with energy upgrades while also addressing health and safety issues related to the energy efficiency work. Viewed nationally, programs effectively incorporate health and safety repairs into their work specifications and allocate an average 12% (or about $780) of the $6500 per unit allocated for weatherization work to complete this sort of health and safety work.

Across the country, there are innovative programs that have found ways to leverage added resources to significantly increase the scope of the health and housing upgrades they can deliver. Innovators have also tackled challenging technical and implementation issues which, in some cases, have streamlined program activities while also creating healthier housing (e.g., testing paint for lead content to determine if lead-safe work practices are required; an action that results in reduced regulatory compliance costs for lead-safe work practices since only a minority of homes tend to test positive for lead).

The interviews with these grantees and subgrantees also revealed challenges. Not all programs have access to or aggressively pursue non-WAP funds to complete needed health and safety repairs while making essential energy upgrades. Even in cases where additional funds may be available, program managers may experience frustration when trying to combine programs and resources that have distinct funding requirements. Some programs described challenges that prevented or limited work in units with specific health and safety issues, while other programs created procedures to successfully address similar issues. Still, the overall picture remains hopeful because opportunities abound for DOE to assist programs in leveraging, innovating, and collaborating.

In general, weatherization programs encounter five core challenges when addressing health and safety issues as they work to create healthier living environments:

1. Increasing the number of homes that they successfully refer to other programs/resources to address health and safety issues which can prevent initial weatherization work, with the goal of reducing deferrals.

2. Finding more effective ways to leverage non-WAP funding to support housing upgrades, in order to more fully address health and housing deficiencies in the homes undergoing weatherization.

3. Improving access to DOE health and safety policies that clearly describe eligible expenses, priority actions for the range of issues confronted in the field, and recommended health and safety allocations that allow local discretion in meeting average—not rigid—per-unit caps.

4. Improving access to training and best practices to address challenging health and safety issues, which will encourage programs to share information in order to benefit from program innovators.

5. Effectively communicating the benefits of the health and safety upgrades for client health as well as the measuring, tracking, and reporting the durability of the weatherization measure.

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NCHH makes the following recommendations for DOE, in order to address the challenges described in this report. These include:

1. Continually enhancing existing WAP guidance and resources. This will address concerns related to eligible expenses, health and safety priorities, and funding limits. It may also result in fewer deferrals as programs are better able to address conditions that previously resulted in a deferral.

2. Supporting and disseminating innovative strategies and best practices. This will address programs’ desire for enhanced training and learning about best practices in order to address challenging and emerging health issues. It will also increase the number of homes successfully referred to other programs/resources, resulting in fewer deferrals.

3. Promoting improved leveraging of non-DOE funds, as well as more effective partnering with other federal agencies to address health and safety problems. This will help to increase successful referrals and thereby reduce deferrals, while leveraging non-WAP funds. Strategies noted in the report include: providing incentives for weatherization providers to access other federal housing/health renovation funding, creating an “opportunity fund” weatherization providers can access for health and safety repairs, and supporting a supplemental roof repair program to ensure the durability and reach of weatherization work.

4. Improving federal coordination to create incentives for integrating energy as well as health upgrades in low-income homes. This will help increase successful referrals for homes needing additional housing and health repairs because programs will be able to offer integrated services. It will also increase non-WAP funding in homes serviced by weatherization. The report recommends that DOE and other federal, state, and local agencies collaborate to provide incentive points in federal housing programs for grantees that leverage weatherization funds, and support consistent income eligibility criteria among energy and housing rehab programs.

5. Assisting weatherization grantees so they can identify opportunities for collaboration to leverage non-governmental funding to supplement WAP and address health and safety issues. This will help increase the number of successful referrals while reducing deferrals. It will also increase non-WAP funding in homes serviced by weatherization and provide programs with access to innovative collaborative approaches and best practices.

6. Developing and supporting program metrics to track successful referrals, health and safety benefits, and enhanced durability of weatherization measures that result from health and safety improvements. This will help address programs’ desire to more effectively communicate the health and energy benefits of health and safety actions. These sorts of metrics could also document changes in effective leveraging of non-WAP funds as well as the number of successful referrals to non-WAP programs which reduce program deferrals.

DOE has demonstrated strong leadership in balancing health and safety with its energy efficiency mandate. A great opportunity exists to provide the WAP guidance, tools, and best practices to enhance grantee and subgrantee capacity to make homes healthier during energy retrofits. DOE is also well positioned as a member of the federal Inter-Agency Healthy Homes Work Group to further the strategies identified in this report, which will help to increase programs’ access to added resources. Through these collaborative effects, the weatherization network can successfully offer its clients homes that are as comfortable and healthy as they are energy efficient.