{"id":45908,"date":"2016-06-01T10:12:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T14:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/renew-program-provides-solution-for-property-owners-struggling-to-meet-need-for-affordable-housing\/"},"modified":"2016-06-01T10:15:34","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T14:15:34","slug":"programa-renew-ofrece-soluciones-a-propietarios-que-tienen-problemas-para-resolver-la-necesidad-de-viviendas-economicas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/programa-renew-ofrece-soluciones-a-propietarios-que-tienen-problemas-para-resolver-la-necesidad-de-viviendas-economicas\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;RENEW&#8217; Program provides solution for property owners struggling to meet need for affordable housing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><![CDATA[\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\nspan.prnews_span\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\na.prnews_a\n{\ncolor:blue;\n}\nli.prnews_li\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\np.prnews_p\n{\nfont-size:0.62em;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\nmargin:0in;\n}\n]]><\/style>\n<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"xn-location\">WASHINGTON<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 1, 2016<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212; Affordable, multi-family rental housing is becoming increasingly scarce nationwide, as property owners struggle to stay in business in the face of rising operating costs. That&#8217;s because rising operating costs, especially in aging buildings, often outpace what affordable housing owners are permitted to charge for rent. <\/p>\n<p>Photo &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/photos.prnewswire.com\/prnh\/20160531\/373644\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/photos.prnewswire.com\/prnh\/20160531\/373644<\/a> <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle<\/span> is among the cities suffering from this affordable housing crisis, according to <span class=\"xn-person\">Marty Kooistra<\/span>, executive director of the city&#8217;s Housing Development Consortium (HDC). He says at least 20,000 new income- or rent-restricted units will be needed in the next decade \u2013 triple HDC members&#8217; best record to date. <\/p>\n<p>In response to this pressing need, Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.emeraldcities.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">www.emeraldcities.org<\/a>) \u2013 a national nonprofit dedicated to building a sustainable and just clean-energy economy with economic opportunities for all \u2013 designed its RENEW Multi-family Program to help nonprofit building owners lower operating costs of these vital community assets. <\/p>\n<p>Working with housing owners, state housing finance agencies and local utilities, ECC facilitates financing of energy- and water-saving upgrades that cut utility bills sufficiently to offset the cost of the efficiency measures. The comprehensive energy and water retrofits also help reduce carbon emissions and generate renewable energy. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In addition to the obvious environmental benefits of energy and water conservation in buildings,&#8221; says ECC Vice President of Investments <span class=\"xn-person\">Kevin Warner<\/span>, &#8220;RENEW helps owners upgrade the energy and water systems in multi-family buildings for less money than it presently costs to operate and maintain them \u2013 and that&#8217;s a good investment.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>To learn more about ECC&#8217;s RENEW Multi Family Program, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/emeraldcities.org\/renewretrofits\/housing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/emeraldcities.org\/renewretrofits\/housing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Robust start in <span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle<\/span><br \/><\/b>Following its <span class=\"xn-chron\">December 2015<\/span> launch, RENEW Multi-family is off to a robust start in <span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle<\/span>, where ECC is working with two nonprofit owners of affordable multi-unit buildings, Plymouth Housing Group and Bellwether Housing:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>The <span class=\"xn-location\">Washington State<\/span> Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC) is lending funds for the efficiency measures; <\/li>\n<li>Seattle City Light (SCL), the municipal electricity utility, is facilitating on-bill repayment of the WSHFC financing; <\/li>\n<li>Retrofits are currently in process in 190 units in two buildings owned by <span class=\"xn-location\">Plymouth<\/span> and are at the construction bidding stage in five buildings owned by Bellwether; and <\/li>\n<li>Already, water use \u2013 the largest utility expense \u2013 is down more than 50 percent compared with last year at the historic St. Charles building owned by <span class=\"xn-location\">Plymouth<\/span> (see graph), and electricity use is down 10 percent. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;<span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle&#8217;s<\/span> RENEW Multi-family Program is the culmination of years of collaborative work that realizes our mission of improving our environment with a lens on equity,&#8221; says Emerald Cities Seattle Director <span class=\"xn-person\">Steve Gelb<\/span>. &#8220;RENEW&#8217;s portfolio approach and scalable model promise to reach deep into the current affordable building stock in the Puget Sound Region.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Warner is confident that RENEW can be taken to scale nationally. &#8220;Every market, every city, every state has the three critical components: utilities, utility customers with unrealized retrofit projects and aligned financing partners,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Our job is to bring them together and facilitate transactions that generate measureable and reliable benefits for all stakeholders.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Based on this success, Gelb is working to bring RENEW to nearly 20 more affordable multi-family buildings in <span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle<\/span> in the next 12 months and expand to up to 40 buildings statewide by 2018. And ECC is working to launch the program this year in <span class=\"xn-location\">California&#8217;s<\/span> Bay Area, eventually expanding it to other metropolitan markets. Additionally, ECC envisions applying the program to small commercial buildings, K-12 schools and higher education facilities. <\/p>\n<p>Employing the same model of offsetting capital investments with operating cost savings, RENEW began in <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 2014<\/span> by facilitating energy and water savings in municipal buildings in the <span class=\"xn-location\">City of Seven Hills<\/span> in <span class=\"xn-location\">Cuyahoga County, Ohio<\/span>. To learn more about that program, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/emeraldcities.org\/media\/news\/ec-cleveland-launches-renew-promising-greener-buildings-high-road-jobs-in-seven-hills-ohio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/emeraldcities.org\/media\/news\/ec-cleveland-launches-renew-promising-greener-buildings-high-road-jobs-in-seven-hills-ohio<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Flexibility is Key<br \/><\/b>What really sets RENEW apart from similar programs \u2013 and the key to its success \u2013 Warner says, are flexibility, accountability and transparency. &#8220;While each RENEW project has its own structure, they all share common features and use a collaborative approach to meet the exact needs of committed, mission-aligned local stakeholders. We match the customer with the technical solutions and the financing that will make the project work.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Owner capacity and access to working capital are two barriers that prevent many buildings from being upgraded,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;So we provide the owner with technical and financial development services at very low upfront cost.&#8221; Those services include benchmarking a building&#8217;s energy use and costs, doing a walk-through with an engineer and consulting with the facilities manager. <\/p>\n<p>Once those services were in place for Plymouth Housing, he adds, &#8220;We took the information to SCL and WSHFC, whose existing programs weren&#8217;t serving those buildings. We explained that RENEW could help SCL reach a population that really needs the savings from energy efficiency and help WSHFC use its dedicated financing to improve and preserve affordable housing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b><span class=\"xn-person\">One Loan<\/span>, One Bill Customized Approach<br \/><\/b><span class=\"xn-location\">Seattle&#8217;s<\/span> RENEW model is notable for aggregating energy and water improvements into one loan from WSHFC, to be paid back as a line item on the housing owner&#8217;s monthly electric bill. SCL agreed not only to on-bill repayment but also to rolling water and natural gas efficiency upgrades into its bill. SCL will simply collect and forward to WSHFC its share of the monthly loan payments. <\/p>\n<p>RENEW&#8217;s customized approach also allows <span class=\"xn-location\">Plymouth<\/span> to finance needed non-energy building upgrades, which WSHFC approved because they serve the commission&#8217;s interest in preserving affordable housing, whether through energy efficiency or structural improvements. <\/p>\n<p>At last year&#8217;s RENEW Multi-family launch event, Plymouth Housing Group Deputy Director <span class=\"xn-person\">Betsy Hunter<\/span> praised Gelb and the RENEW team for &#8220;working relentlessly to develop a program that will work for <span class=\"xn-location\">Plymouth<\/span> and other nonprofit housing owners to save on operating costs and raise our awareness about energy use to make the city greener.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>She continued, &#8220;We should recoup our investments within just a few years, and we will enjoy the energy benefits much longer than that. That&#8217;s the right kind of investment for nonprofits, which pledge to operate our properties for many decades.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><i>Emerald Cities Collaborative (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.emeraldcities.org\" rel=\"nofollow\">www.emeraldcities.org<\/a>) is a national nonprofit network of organizations working together to advance a sustainable environment while creating economic opportunities for all. ECC is headquartered in <span class=\"xn-location\">Washington, D.C.<\/span>, and works in &#8220;Emerald Cities&#8221; nationwide with local and national partners that bring resources and expertise\u00a0from the community, labor, business and government sectors.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Media Contact<br \/><span class=\"xn-person\">Ronnie Kweller<\/span> <a href=\"mailto:rkweller@emeraldcities.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">rkweller@emeraldcities.org<\/a>; 202-688-0880; 202-276-9327<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"xn-location\">WASHINGTON<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 1, 2016<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212; Affordable, multi-family rental housing is becoming increasingly scarce nationwide, as property owners struggle to stay in business in the face of rising operating costs. That&#8217;s because rising operating costs, especially in aging buildings, often outpace what affordable housing owners are permitted to charge for rent. <\/p>\n<p>Photo &#8211; &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/photos.prnewswire.com\/prnh\/20160531\/373644&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interes-humano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}