Two affordable housing complexes near Washington Park will get upgrades beginning next year.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the two renovation projects Tuesday. The renovations will be focused on making the buildings more energy-efficient. They include the addition of solar panels, new roofs and windows, and making the buildings fully electric. The individual units in the apartments also will be updated.
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Julie Gordon, federal housing commissioner for HUD, says the renovation project, set to start in 2025, is funded through HUD's Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP), which supplies grants and loans to support energy-efficient renovations for similar buildings across the country.
"What we do is we try to alleviate the burden of housing insecurity for people and now we're taking that a step further with GRRP to make sure that the homes we offer and the homes that HUD supports are not only affordable, and clean, and decent, and safe, but also energy-efficient and climate resilient," Gordon said.
The Washington Park apartments — which will receive around $2 million from GRRP — include two buildings. One on the corner of Race and 13th Street, and the other on Republic Street in Over-the-Rhine.
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Mayor Aftab Pureval says the federal funding will help improve the lives of each building's residents while remaining affordable.
"The Washington Park buildings are more than a century old and were last renovated in 2005," Pureval said. "That's a story we unfortunately hear too often and through GRRP support, they will be made more climate resilient, more accessible, and higher quality."
Through seven rounds of funding, HUD has granted or loaned a total of $610 million for energy-related improvements in low-income housing complexes across the country.
