A study on energy efficiency in low-income housing is moving forward, months after the Trump administration terminated the grant funding it.
Environmental nonprofit Green Umbrella says it and its research partners now have enough private funding to continue the project, which involves weatherizing and electrifying affordable apartments with Over-the-Rhine Community Housing.
Executive Director Ryan Mooney-Bullock says Green Umbrella will soon be able to install new insulation and updated HVAC systems into the apartments.
“There's a lot of assumptions that have been made about what will happen when you make these types of improvements within housing units, but there have not actually been studies that have really shown through the entire process, what does this feel like? What do the residents of these units experience?” Mooney-Bullock said.
Green Umbrella, along with researchers from Indiana University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pennsylvania, also is surveying residents to gain insight into those questions.
Mooney-Bullock says she hopes their findings can help households across the country reduce their energy bills and consumption.
“As we seek to move forward with lower energy use and green sources of energy — not just for the folks who can afford solar panels on their houses, but people who are living in all types of housing — we knew it was really important information that we wanted to be able to continue to study,” Mooney-Bullock said.
Green Umbrella plans to share the study publicly once it is complete.
The nonprofit received a $1.1 million award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2023 for the energy study. In May, Green Umbrella learned its grant had been terminated because it is “no longer in alignment with the EPA’s priorities.”
The nonprofit disputed the termination with the EPA, but says it hasn’t heard anything back yet.
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