Right-To-Renew, And Other Things

Gentrification and predatory housing practices led policymakers in Ann Arbor to create a new “right-to-renew” ordinance. Could it be a valuable tool in the fight for tenant protections?

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Energy Burden: How To Measure? How To Reduce?

Measuring energy burden is relatively straightforward. Figuring out how to create robust metrics for it, though– and how to address it- is much more challenging.

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MDHHS and LIHEAP: We’ll Pay For Fossil Fuels. Weatherization, Not So Much.

At an MPSC workgroup meeting this morning on Energy Waste Reduction specifically for the low to moderate income (LMI) market

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Debt or Asset? How Utility Shutoffs Are About To Be A Big Problem.

Springtime and mounting debt related to COVID19 means utility shutoffs are coming. At least probably. Here are some ideas for how we can fix our broken systems for utility billing– and how we subsidize utilities through programs like LIHEAP without actually moving the needle on energy poverty.

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MPSC December Meeting: Neighborhood-Level Equity and Energy

Dr. Tony G. Reames of the University of Michigan, Briana Parker of Elevate Energy, and others presented at an MPSC meeting on some approaches to the question of equity in energy efficiency for low-income communities and communities of color.

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Facing A Crisis of COVID, Evictions, and Utility Shutoffs

COVID19 is exposing a particularly ugly nexus between energy insecurity and housing insecurity, referred to in a few separate presentations at a recent workgroup meeting of the Michigan Public Service Commission.

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Highlighting Detroit’s Sustainable Community Development Projects

  “We often hear about how it’s great to get like-minded people together in the same place,” one USGBC-DRC member

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