<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0OVx7b_1EOrLzXJ00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0OVx7b_1EOrLzXJ00" width="750" height="208" >We are in the midst of a housing crisis, here in Albany County and across our nation.We are also in the midst of an environmental crisis, again here in Albany County and across our nation — indeed, around the globe.Climate change has bought catastrophic floods and fires, droughts and hurricanes.Government can and should make a difference for the good.We’ve commended our county legislature this year for passing a bill to create a revolving loan fund to connect housing developers with financial, advisory, or educational assistance.The county noted a long-standing guideline for housing budgeting: People should pay no more than 30 percent of the area’s median income for housing, which is $116,100 for a family of four in Albany County. But 41 percent of Albany County renters are spending more than that on housing.Annually, county renters’ purchasing power fails to keep up with increasing rents: From 2022 to 2023, renters’ wages increased by an average of 3.3 percent, while apartment rents increased by an average of 8.8 percent.Last year, the county adopted two initiatives to ease the housing shortage — one to help first-time homebuyers navigate their purchase and the other to provide incentives to county residents building accessory dwelling units.“This is creating an economic environment where developers who are passionate about uplifting neighborhoods and creating workforce housing options for county residents and their families to turn into homes,” said Joanne Cunningham, who chairs the legislature, at the time. “Stable workforce housing creates thriving communities, lowers crime rates, creates generational wealth, and builds civic pride.”Cunningham spearheaded the bill along with Deputy Chairwoman Wanda Willingham.“Stable housing,” said Willingham, “saves lives, prevents crime, and builds public pride, plain and simple.”While these are admirable initiatives, their scope is small.Our state government is attempting to ease the housing crisis on a larger scale but in a way that is harmful to the environment, weakening environmental review for eligible multifamily housing projects.In July, the Guilderland Town Board, after hearing concerns from a neighbor, wisely decided to proceed with traditional environmental review rather than using the new shortcut for an affordable-housing project proposed for Mercy Care Lane.Lynne Jackson, a founder of the grassroots advocacy group Save the Pine Bush, delineated the dilemma powerfully in a letter to us.Weakening the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act, she wrote, encourages “shortcuts so that homeowners won’t be assured that their homes are safe from environmental disasters or that endangered species were not killed in the process.”The repeal, Jackson wrote, “will effectively put Save the Pine Bush out of business because we will no longer have any ability to file cases. Save the Pine Bush is an all-volunteer citizens’ group that has managed to create a Pine Bush Preserve in the face of encroaching suburban development, mainly thanks to SEQRA. The Pine Bush Preserve is now one of the much advertised attractive features of the Capital District that makes people want to live here.”Jackson concluded, “To put it plainly, SEQRA empowers citizens. That’s why the powerful want it to go away.”What if government could help solve the housing crisis and the climate crisis at the same time with a single program?This question occurred to us as we listened to a roundtable discussion on Aug. 11 organized by Congressman Paul Tonko, a Democrat representing the Capital Region in District 20.Tonko said he will be introducing a Regional Energy Hubs Act that would authorize the federal Department of Energy to set up and maintain regional hubs nationwide to help residents navigate and access energy and energy-efficiency incentives and affordability programs.Those at the roundtable — social-service administrators, contractors, and homeowners — were part of or have benefitted from the Capital Region Clean Energy Hub, which serves eight counties.“They’ll be staffed and supported by trusted local organizations with experience in energy, in housing, in low-income programs and services,” said Tonko of the hubs. The bill would authorize $50 million over a five-year stretch from 2027 to 2031, he said.The Inflation Reduction Act, under the Biden administration, Tonko said, “put together a number of grants and rebates and tax credits … a plethora of opportunities.”But, he said, “We might have missed the point to make certain we connected awareness, information, and assistance on how to network into those systems.”That’s what a regional hub would do, saving both energy and dollars. “We liked what happened here in New York,” Tonko said. “We want to stretch it out and make it a more permanent, five-year effort and hopefully grow beyond that.”He gave the example of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Service that has, for over a century, disseminated information on new agricultural practices.Susan Cotner, who directs the Affordable Housing Partnership of the Capital Region, explained, “We educate folks, make sure they’re aware of incentives to help make their homes more energy efficient, and also bill-reduction programs, like community solar, and energy-reduction programs. Our role is to also help increase the success rate of projects being completed.”In 2024, as Albany County was disbursing $8 million in pandemic funds, having received over 100 applicants seeking a combined $37 million, Cotner’s agency was one of 40 to receive funding.“The pandemic has had an enduring impact on housing and neighborhoods,” she said at the time. “And we are receiving some funds to do home-repair work here throughout the county, for city and rural poor alike. Lost income has resulted in deferred maintenance and poor quality housing.“A leaky roof means that there’s mold that’s happening in attics and that’s exacerbating asthma, which is one of the chief health concerns of families in low-income communities in the city and rural parts of the county.”She also noted that remote work, which skyrocketed during the pandemic, had enabled more people to move to Albany County, putting “additional pressures on an already extremely tight market for homeownership.”Cotner said families were moving into vacant properties every day, “trying to turn on utilities, trying to just get a roof over their heads. They’re doubling up, tripling up in really severely overcrowded conditions.”Stabilized housing, she said, would result in a stronger tax base.At the Aug. 11 roundtable, Cotner said, “Our priority populations are folks who are spending more than … 6 percent of their income for energy. So, we’re really looking to bring that down so that there’s money left over for something more than just spaghetti for the rest of their lives.”Paul Mendel, who owns and runs True Building Performance, a weatherization contractor based in Albany, explained that he does energy audits to identify health and safety issues that might prevent weatherization work. “That’s really where the hub comes in, in trying to find ways to do houses that are normally passed up.”The hub, he said, has “mastercrafted ways to navigate” issues like mold or roof leaks or mechanical failures that otherwise would stop typical funding for insulation or air-sealing.Haley O’Brien stressed the importance of reaching young people to make them aware of jobs in the clean-energy field. O’Brien is the program coordinator at the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, a not-for-profit urban environmental education center on a one-acre farm in Albany’s South End, which was once a paved lot.“We spend a lot of time going into schools, or working with the global youth programs,” said O’Brien. “We usually start with a basic presentation, even tell them what clean energy is because a lot of them don’t even have that knowledge yet.”Director of Sustainability for TAP Inc. Daniel Morrissey said that, although clean-energy internships have ended after five years, “We’re directing people to a couple of other programs,” such as Climate Justice Fellowships.TAP Inc. — TAP is an acronym for Totally Awesome Professionals — is a not-for-profit based in Troy that provides design and planning services to low- and moderate-income property owners, neighborhood groups and other not-for-profit organizations wanting to improve their homes, buildings, and neighborhoods.Although there is no typical trainee for work in the clean-energy field, Morrissey said, candidates have often dropped out of high school. “They need their GED; they help them get that … We’ve helped people from 17 all the way up to 65 who are trying to change careers.”The center of the hub is of course the homeowner who is being helped.Rinaldo Clark, an affable man who walks with a cane, brought a picture of his house to the August roundtable.“We all go through this journey of life,” he said, “and somewhere on the journey, on the path, is home ownership — or the hope of home ownership. And of course I had that,” he said of the hope, “and I was able to purchase my own home.”He went on, “Of course, the happiness is there — but then the roof leaks.”Clark said he was “blessed to receive help from the Affordable Housing Partnership and, you know, they basically fixed my house. I wouldn’t have been able to survive through it without their help because the roof was leaking, the air was escaping, and I was caught in the middle, you know?”He concluded, “And now everything is OK …. I’m living in a great, cleaner, healthier environment.”We’re fortunate to live in a state that already has clean energy hubs. Supporting a nationwide program would shore up support for our Capital Region hub and would benefit us all since environmental issues cannot be solved locally or even regionally.As Tonko pointed out, on solar energy, “It’s the market telling us that it’s not only the cheapest, it’s the cleanest and it’s the quickest to get online.”Clean energy creates job opportunities, spurring the economy without damaging the planet.Policies under the Trump administration are not only hurting the environment, increasing climate change, but also exacerbating the housing crisis.Five years ago, New Yorkers approved the Environmental Rights Amendment to our state constitution with a whopping 70 percent of the vote. “Each person,” the amendment says, “shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”Energy hubs would help ensure those rights, benefitting individuals who, like Rinaldo Clark, could live in healthy homes. At the same time, because the hubs encourage use of clean energy over fossil fuels while also reducing energy use overall, we would all breathe easier.</div></body>

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We are in the midst of a housing crisis, here in Albany County and across our nation. We are also in the midst of an environmental crisis, again here in Albany County and across our nation — indeed, around the globe. Climate change has bought catastrophic floods and fires,...

Regional hubs would save both energy and dollars

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We are in the midst of a housing crisis, here in Albany County and across our nation. We are also in the midst of an environmental crisis, again here in Al

Regional hubs would save both energy and dollars - NewsBreak

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Regional hubs would save both energy and dollars

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