NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / March 6, 2024 / Wells Fargo
With initial support from the Wells Fargo Foundation, new focus area will bring evidence-based research to the intersections between housing and climate policy
Author: Carolina Reid
In the face of a rapidly changing climate, the intersection of housing and climate policy has emerged as a critical area of focus. The policies that impact where and what type of housing and communities are built are inextricably linked to environmental sustainability and resilience. These issues are not separate from the affordability crisis that dominates much of the housing policy discussion. Indeed, the lack of affordable housing has many adverse impacts for the climate, including pushing new housing into the wildland-urban interface and increasing the time people spend in their cars. In turn, climate-related disasters exacerbate the housing crisis by reducing the supply of affordable housing and increasing costs, such as home insurance.
Since its founding, the Terner Center's mission has been to formulate bold strategies to house families from all walks of life in vibrant, sustainable, and affordable homes and communities. We have pursued this mission by focusing our research on issues such as land use and zoning reforms that unlock new supply, racial gaps in access to homeownership, improving the way we finance and provide affordable housing, and addressing homelessness.
While mitigating and building resilience to climate change was always a part of this original mission, we have done less research on the intersections between housing and climate than we had initially planned. However, the growing threat of climate change is increasing the urgency for solutions, and specifically, solutions that don't run counter to the urgency of the housing crisis and the ongoing efforts to expand housing supply. We're excited to share that, with initial support from the Wells Fargo Foundation, we are launching a new focus area that will bring evidence-based research to the intersections between housing and climate policy.
Some of the challenges motivating our work on climate are not far afield from the housing policy failures we have tackled (and will continue to address). For example, the predominance of single-family zoning in the United States has exacerbated both affordability and the climate crises.1 Our goal of pursuing solutions that advance social and racial equity are strongly aligned with a focus on climate: the consequences of both housing and climate policy failures fall disproportionately on people with low incomes and people of color. Not only are these households more vulnerable to climate disasters due to where they live and the conditions of the homes they can afford,2 they are also less likely to receive disaster recovery assistance.3 These households are likewise more vulnerable to chronic stressors exacerbated by climate change, such as heat and air pollution.4
But there is also the real risk that in the effort to respond to climate change, policy makers may make decisions that run counter to housing affordability and equity goals, when in fact what is needed are policies that advance progress on both fronts. Fragmented governance at the local, state, and federal scales contributes to poorly coordinated policies across housing and climate areas,5 which hamper their effectiveness and further pit climate and affordability goals in opposition to one another.
Research is needed to provide policy makers with better evidence to navigate these tensions between climate and housing policies, and to identify complementary solutions at all scales of government. For example:
Our new "Housing + Climate" research area explores these topics and contributes to efforts to better align housing and climate policies. We've already started: we have launched new research projects that will explore how California's housing policies can best advance its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. We are working with a coalition of community-based and environmental justice groups to better understand what is needed to advance equitable housing decarbonization strategies. We're also looking at how federal Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants can be leveraged to fund retrofitting and decarbonization of affordable housing. In 2024, our sister nonprofit, Terner Labs, is launching a new Builders Lab initiative, which will provide an opportunity to incubate innovative construction techniques and identify strategies to overcome regulatory and other barriers to implementation.
Neither the climate nor the housing crises are easy challenges to address: both are emblematic of "wicked problems"6-complicated, evolving, and multiscalar-without simple answers but with high stakes if we get the answers wrong. Research can help guide necessary policies, but partnerships and collective action are similarly critical.
We invite your input as we undertake this work. Find our first report in our Housing + Climate research area, which is a review of the research on links between housing and climate in the U.S. on our website here.
Footnotes:
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SOURCE: Wells Fargo