LISC is intensifying its work on and investments in climate resiliency and green projects, especially in disinvested communities that bear the brunt of climate change and ecological degradation. In fact, advancing environmental justice is mission-critical in LISC’s efforts to promote racial and economic equity in American cities, towns, and rural areas. Here's how we're doing it.
After decades of quietly fostering climate resiliency in underserved communities, LISC is sharpening its focus on climate action in ways that will bring green and climate-focused strategy to all its work with partners on the ground. This move reflects a recognition that advancing environmental justice is mission-critical in LISC’s efforts to promote racial and economic equity in American cities, towns, and rural areas.
“‘Green’ is a responsibility of all of us at LISC working in housing and community development,” explains Madeline Fraser Cook, who leads the green strategy as LISC’s newly appointed vice president of community building and resilient solutions. “When these projects are siloed the green aspects tend to fall away in the value-engineering phase of development, or they wither when a special grant expires. We have to integrate greening concepts into all our work, and that’s what we hope this new strategy will help to do.”
This approach calls for intensified investment and advocacy in four major program areas where LISC is deeply engaged in climate-related efforts:
- Supporting equitable disaster response and recovery, and promoting resiliency to climate impacts for all communities
- Building and retrofitting affordable housing with an eye to resident health, energy efficiency, and the resiliency that minimizes disruptions from climate-change impacts
- Connecting low-income and BIPOC workers and small businesses with the jobs and other opportunities represented by the nation’s transition to a green economy
- Financing the development of green infrastructure in under-resourced communities, including renewable-energy equipment like solar panels and the transit-oriented developments that makes communities more livable while reducing the carbon footprint of transportation
As the country’s largest community development organization, LISC is uniquely positioned for the mission at hand. Its comprehensive, cross-sector approach means it can develop creative green solutions, such as connecting workforce training and capacity building for developers of color with remunerative work on eco-friendly projects in their own communities. LISC’s 40-plus-year experience blending public and private funds means it can utilize major public programs while also deploying flexible private dollars to, for example, provide emergency help in the wake of weather-related disasters to vulnerable families who can’t easily gather the paperwork required to access federal assistance, or can’t wait for those dollars to reach them to make their homes safe and habitable.
Focusing on climate resiliency and green development “is really an opportunity for the organization to tell a story about what it’s doing and what it expects to do going forward,” says Mark Kudlowitz, LISC senior director of policy. That’s especially important now, as unprecedented federal resources for green development are becoming available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. “A lot of public subsidies are going to be coming down the pike,” says Kudlowitz. “To access and deploy those resources for low-income communities we need to be ready with a business case. We need to be at the table with a strategy.”
Just as they’ve suffered most in the COVID pandemic, low-wealth communities of color bear a disproportionate brunt from air and water pollution as well as climate-related hardships like extreme heat and damage from fire, flooding and wind.
“What will be really important as we’re developing a green strategy is to ask, in any decision making, what are the equity implications of this work?” says Emily Jones, senior program officer for LISC Boston’s Green Homes + Green Jobs Initiative. “How are we focused on really good-paying jobs and not just any jobs in green industries? What are the implications to transitioning to all-electric building systems and how do we make sure that we’re reducing the cost of energy for owners and residents? How do we make sure there are anti-displacement policies and strategies in place before we move forward with some of this green investment?”
Part of the approach involves organizing and sharing lessons from the scores of LISC-supported green initiatives already happening across local markets in each of the four program areas. For instance:
- In the area of disaster response and climate resilience, LISC recently produced for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) a comprehensive, user-friendly guide to creating climate-resilient building codes in every state. In places like Kansas City, MO, LISC is spearheading the development of neighborhood resiliency plans. In the immediate aftermath of Superstorm Sandy (2012) in New York and Hurricane Harvey (2017) in Houston, local LISC offices quickly organized collaboratives to remediate toxic mold and repair homes. After a deadly wildfire leveled Paradise, CA, in 2018, LISC provided funding for technical and legal assistance to enable a housing partner to rebuild its affordable 36-unit Paradise Community Village. And after Hurricane Maria hammered Puerto Rico, LISC made a loan to resilient-power company inverSOL to jumpstart the manufacture and sale of solar-power generators on the island.
- To promote opportunity in the transition to a green economy, LISC has designed “green jobs” training-and-support programs for workers interested in living-wage jobs in weatherization in Boston and solar-panel installation in Newark and Los Angeles, to name just a few initiatives. A new $1 million grant from TD Bank is building on LISC’s Boston “Bridges to Green” jobs to advance this work. And in another example, LISC Twin Cities’ capacity-building program for developers of color supplied local solar-energy executive Jamez Staples with technical and financial resources that helped Staples realize his vision for a renewable-energy job training center in North Minneapolis, where he grew up.
- In the area of sustainable and resilient affordable housing, Rural LISC is one among several leading LISC programs. Since 2015 its Healthy Housing Initiative has put out $3.84 million in grants to more than 60 organizations to make improvements to houses and apartment buildings, many aimed at increasing energy and water efficiency and trimming utility bills. Rural LISC recently added sustainability and resilience measures to its scoring criteria for the grants. “We have more applicants than we have funding, so there’s a lot more work to be done,” says Keegan McChesney, a Rural LISC program officer. “The transition to a green economy is happening now, and I think it’s LISC’s role to make sure our partners have a seat at the table.”
- There’s also a lot of activity across the LISC network to establish renewable-energy infrastructure in underinvested American communities. LISC has financed solar-energy panels for affordable housing complexes in Washington, DC, and New York City, for example. Equitable transit-oriented development, which aims for density around transit stops that allows convenient, multi-modal travel and reduces the need for emissions-producing private cars, is a central strategy for multiple LISC offices including LISC Phoenix. LISC New York recently won a $10 million state Clean Neighborhoods Challenge award for its proposal to revolutionize transportation on Buffalo’s East Side with e-bikes, an electric carshare program, and use of greenways. Where one in three residents lacks access to a private vehicle, says LISC New York director of operations Tyra Johnson Hux, these and other improvements will both reduce carbon emissions and make life easier for residents. Plans to prepare local workers to repair and drive new “clean” buses are also in the works.
Finally, LISC will also be assessing, tracking, and reporting its own carbon footprint, beginning with headquarters in New York City and Washington, DC, and eventually encompassing nationwide operations, employee travel, and more. “We are part of this world,” says Laura Mixter, who’s spearheading the assessment as LISC’s ESG & Impact Reporting lead. “Climate change affects everyone, and though CDFIs and nonprofits are doing good work that doesn’t mean we get a pass. While we continue that good work, we also have to be stewards of our environmental impact.”