Grantee Visit: Gwinnett Housing Corporation, Georgia Hispanic Construction Association and Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

On August 13th, the Ray C. Anderson Foundation staff visited grantee partners Gwinnett Housing Corporation (GHC), Georgia Hispanic Construction Association (GHCA) and Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) at GHCA's office in Atlanta. The Foundation represented all of the foundations that fund the Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions & Equity Grants program.

The visit offered the three grantee partners an opportunity to reflect on the successes and lessons learned from their two year grant, awarded in 2023-24. The goal of their project was to expand access to healthy, affordable, The goal of their project was to expand access to healthy, affordable, and low-emission housing for vulnerable, BIPOC, low-income, and low-wealth community members in Gwinnett County.

The grant partners focused on identifying opportunities to engage with and provide educational resources, energy efficiency information, and funding opportunities to residents in Georgia House District 98 (HD 98), the most diverse and under-resourced part of Gwinnett County. HD 98 is 87% BIPOC with over 50% of residents identifying as immigrants. Their low incomes and low earning potential coupled with proximity to traffic, lack of alternative transportation, and linguistic isolation further compound the issue.

Grant Year One

The first year of the grant was heavily focused on reviewing data collected as part of a previous Justice40 Capacity Building Fund award, with heavy outreach for stakeholder engagement.

Extensive housing analysis already collected on HD 98 identified priority energy and housing interventions. The Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions & Equity Grant allowed the grantees to take the next step: leveraging the existing data to identify and braid funds from utilities, tax credits, block grants, and other sources to amplify federal funds and create two shovel-ready pilot programs.

While weatherization of homes at scale was a top priority of the program to help residents reduce their utility bills, the grantees also recognized that lack of funding was just one of several barriers. Workforce constraints and lack of training and certification were also prohibitive for minority business enterprise participation in bidding for contracts to weatherize homes. Training and resources for contractors were needed. The GHCA took the lead on this part of the grant, seeking to create access to weatherization and build energy efficiency training and clean energy minority job pipelines. Many of the contractors targeted for the training live and work in Gwinnett County.

Resident engagement was a key part of Year One. Canvassers were paid to conduct door to door outreach to homeowners and renters in HD 98 to measure the residents' awareness and interest in various energy efficiency practices and funding opportunities. Multiple convenings were also held with residents to solicit their input as a community and to allow them to exercise their rights as decision makers.

Grant Year Two

In Year Two, GHC took the information gathered from residents in Year One and engaged with investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, philanthropists, state and county decision makers, banks and lenders, and other nonprofits--all necessary to best understand how to braid funding streams to best help the residents where they needed it the most.

SEEA provided technical assistance to GHC, GHCA, and municipal stakeholders seeking to apply for federal investments and additional grants, and they began engaging with outside funders.

GHCA deployed training and education modules and offered them to contractors seeking to secure federal contracts in clean energy and energy efficiency.

Lastly, in Year Two, SEEA helped GHC develop a resource guide for Gwinnett County, with hopes to scale the program and offer it to other under-resourced Georgia communities that seek to match community priorities with federal funding opportunities for advancing healthy, affordable, and efficient housing.

This grant was funded by a collaborative of foundations with roots in Georgia. Funders for this project included: The Ray C. Anderson Foundation's NextGen Committee, Sapelo Foundation, Kendeda Fund, R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation (Dobbs Fund), and The Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation.