Housing and Energy Equity: How are Communities of Color Benefiting from Clean Energy Developments?

Over 40 community members braved the cold and snow on Thursday, January 8^th, to gather at Phillips Community Center for our third BCLI Issue Series of the season.  Co-hosted with the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy (CEED), we brought together a panel of environmental justice and housing advocates to explore the question: How do the issues of affordable housing, environmental sustainability, and racial justice interlink?

Check out the photo gallery here, and listen to the audio of speakers below.

Shalini Gupta, Executive Director of CEED, kicked off the evening with an introduction to energy equity and the explanation of green zones. She highlighted key data including:

• Low-income families, many of whom are from communities of color, pay  up to 17 percent of their income on utilities and energy due to electric heating and drafty homes, in addition to being cost burdened and paying 30 percent or more for housing.
• Many of the funding opportunities and incentives for energy efficiency and green energy development are taken advantage of by homeowners rather than renters, further burdening low-income residents paying for high energy costs.

Check out Gupta’s PowerPoint here for more information, and listen to her audio below.

The panelists then jumped into an exploration of the energy issues within affordable housing, racial justice and a current green initiative, Minneapolis’ Clean Energy Partnership. Click below to listen to the full panel (skip ahead to each panelist: ThaoMee Xiong :02; CM Elizabeth Glidden 7:28; Kathy Wetzel-Mastel 16:44).

ThaoMee Xiong, Policy Director of Minnesota Housing Partnership, shared her perspective as an organizer working with and within communities of color, and the current work that MHP is embarking upon doing research on best administrative practices and legislative policies that benefit communities of color in general and specifically in Greater Minnesota.

Council Member Elizabeth Glidden, Minneapolis Ward 8 City Council Member and also serves as the Council Vice President, discussed her work with the Clean Energy Partnership, a first-of-its-kind partnership with the City of Minneapolis, Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy “which will have the City and the utility companies collaborating in new ways to help Minneapolis achieve its clean energy goals.” CM Glidden shared that a community advisory board will be created to help guide the new Clean Energy Partnership, and invited the community to apply for these seats.

Kathy Wetzel-Mastel, Executive Director of PRG, Inc., spoke to her work as a housing developer in the Twin Cities area. Wetzel-Mastel highlighted the importance of responding to the needs of the community ensuring energy-efficiency in the development of affordable housing to guarantee ongoing affordability of units.

The evening concluded with Q & A between panelists and the audience. Listen to the full Q & A in the link below, or see the list of questions beneath the link.

1. (:44) What does ‘diverse interests’ mean, and how will people of color be on decision-making boards rather than just advisory boards?
2. (10:15) Can you create some kind of reporting system where utility bill payments can be trade-lines that can be reported as a way to improve credit scores for low-income renters paying such high utility bills?
3. (13:23) How are all of you reaching out to others to share this [technical information and awareness of opportunities] knowledge in community? How can you ensure the Clean Energy Partnership advisory board will have people of color on it to help make decisions?
4. (18:50) With resources coming in from federal, state and municipalities, are there going to be minority participation goals implemented to ensure equal distribution among communities of color?

The 2013-2014 Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) Issue Series came to a close with our final Issue Series on Thursday, March 6, 2014. Over 30 community members gathered at the Rondo Library in Saint Paul to discuss Health Equity in the Twin Cities with our panelists Antonia Wilcoxon, Director of Community Relations at the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) and Joo Hee Pomplun, Organizer of the Health Equity Working Committee (HEWC).

View the photo gallery here.

We kicked off the event with the questions “What does ‘health’ mean to you?” and “What does ‘health equity’ mean to you?” After discussing in small groups, our panelists elaborated on their work in health equity and how it is connected to racial equity in their work and how their work is poised to capitalize on the assets of communities of color in the broader equity movement.

Ms. Wilcoxon shared that “We cannot make these decisions or arrive at some findings here in the absence of the very people that we are talking about because they are not here at the table to speak for themselves.”

Ms. Pomplun shared: “One thing that I’ve always really questioned is the State and however many agencies and institutions keep asking: ‘How do we solve these racial disparities; how do we solve these problems?’ But then they go back into their institutions and … think about it, and do their own little think-tank in their institutions. But the answer is in the community… There is so much readiness, so much passion, so much desire to be out there leading policy, making policy, making the changes that we want to see happen that will benefit our communities to create and advance the equity that is needed and necessary…”

The ensuing discussion centered around involvement of communities of color not only in advisory roles to local government – like the Cultural and Ethnic Communities Leadership Council that Ms. Wilcoxon facilitates – but also as the decision-makers and policy shapers, as Ms. Pomplun shared with her work helping draft a bill to amend a health related tax that would impact communities of color and LGBTQ communities.

The panelists closed by sharing some recommendations on how each of us can incorporate health equity into our own work, as well as ways to become an active member in local decision-making processes around health and health equity.

Check out the full audio recording of our panelists (41:56):

For more information about the BCLI, check out our website and join our listserv to get updates on upcoming events.

We look forward to seeing everyone this November for the beginning of our 2014-2015 BCLI Issue Series!

Antonia Wilcoxon
Director of Community Relations
Department of Human Services (DHS)

“That generated a process in which we created – I say we, but it was really the collective of both state employees which were in a smaller number than the cultural communities – a series of recommendations for the agency [DHS] to undertake… [including] that our agency did not hire the people who look like the people we served, so the agency changed its affirmative action goals to develop some goals for minority hire. Another concern was the fact that as an agency we knew very little about the community we serve, so they really recommended some anti-racism training which the senior leadership went through and they learned how much we excluded the community that we serve, and made some actions to make sure that we include more individuals affected by the disparities in the planning and development of the policies. The Cultural and Ethnic Communities Leadership Council was created and passed into law this past legislative session with the purpose of advising the commissioner of human services on disparities reduction.”

Joo Hee Pomplun
Organizer
Health Equity Working Committee (HEWC)

“It’s so fantastic to have Antonia at DHS, because she is just such a champion and internal person to connect with to understand how the culture works, who to talk to, and just to help us navigate and message what we see as the barriers to the disparity reduction happening at DHS.

…

“[As part of a leadership institute I’m a part of for leaders of color and LGBTQ leaders in policy] we offered… a complimentary bill to this tax [a tax that largely affects communities of color and LGBTQ communities] and we wanted to bring some equity to that tax that would bring some of those resources back into our communities that would bring some benefits and reduce the impact of that tax… None of us ever did a bill before…but Senator Hayden was really fantastic and helped us walk through it and Senator Dibble as well…There is power. There is desire. There is passion. It’s just a matter of us taking those opportunities to do it.”