Funding Programs
This tab features federal, state, and local programs that could be used to fund environmental justice or equity focused adaptation. It also includes resources and guides on how and where to access funding. This is not intended to be a list of available grants for adaptation.
Resources are automatically presented by date. Apply additional filters to narrow the list by organization type of author, state, jurisdictional focus, or region.
82 results are shown below.
Filter by States AffectedSelect states to filter this list
All
Alabama Alaska American Samoa Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Northern Marianas Islands Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virgin Islands Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
Resource
May 15, 2020
In May of 2020, New York City (NYC)’s Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a COVID-19 Heat Wave Plan to keep vulnerable New Yorkers cool at home, create safer summer cooling options, and anticipate and reduce power outages. The plan addresses the higher risk for indoor summer heat exposure that vulnerable residents face while simultaneously trying to maintain social distancing in the context of a global pandemic. The $55 million plan directs the City to install 74,000 air conditioning units in the homes of residents who are 60 years of age or older, retrofit new spaces for emergency cooling centers, and better prepare for power outages. The plan lessens risk for vulnerable NYC residents of heat-related illnesses and death, as well as COVID exposure or infection. NYC recognizes the intrinsic connection with climate change, social equity, and COVID-19 recovery, and is committed to protecting the most vulnerable from climate impacts like extreme heat.
Resource Category: Planning
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
Baltimore Shines is a Baltimore City initiative that helps low-income residents access solar energy through either rooftop installations or community solar projects in Baltimore, Maryland. The program also expands workforce development opportunities in the solar installation industry. Baltimore Shines pilot projects were used to learn about barriers preventing solar installation in low-income communities and to inform the development of a sustainable financing model to increase access to solar energy. As the initial step to teaching energy affordability awareness, Baltimore Shines had community residents’ homes retrofitted by its close affiliate, Civic Works, which installed energy and water conservation equipment in homes. This program was not income restricted and is open to any Baltimore City homeowner or tenant residing in a house or apartment. Baltimore Shines also incorporated the development of workforce opportunities for underemployed and unemployed Baltimore residents through job-training and job placement. Additionally, Baltimore Shines leveraged a state funding program - the Maryland Community Solar Pilot program - that supported investments in renewable energy projects benefiting low- and moderate- income customers and encouraged private investment in the state’s solar industry with incentives for the investors. The program ultimately lowered bills, increased wages for some of the City’s low-income, under-employed or unemployed residents, and enhanced access to solar for many throughout the city.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
The Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project (SERCAP) was established through funding from the U.S. Government’s Office of Economic Opportunity in the 1960s. The Project helps low-income rural communities in the mid-Atlantic and the Southeastern U.S. obtain water and wastewater infrastructure for running water, indoor plumbing, and wastewater treatment. Water utilities in these rural areas often lack funding to provide such infrastructure. Households that are not supplied with drinking water tend to rely on wells and septic tanks, which can get contaminated by pollution from agricultural activity and the lack of suitable wastewater treatment. SERCAP assists both individuals and municipalities, and its services include installing infrastructure, providing financing and loans, and offering technical support. In addition to providing services related to water, SERCAP also provides support on housing issues.
Resource Category: Organizations
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
2019
The Jade Greening Initiatives refer to two concurrent initiatives to plan and implement targeted tree planting and greening in the underserved Jade District of outer southeast Portland, Oregon. Residents in the district experience significant economic and health disparities due to historic public disinvestment, its location surrounded by major transportation corridors on all sides, and lack of tree canopy and accessible green space. With assistance from community-based organizations, community members and businesses worked together to set priorities for neighborhood development and greening. Collaboration, planning, and design of new greenspace were supported through the EPA's Greening America's Communities Program and the Oregon Solutions Program.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
March 1, 2018
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) Better Together Resilient Communities grant program funds initiatives to help California communities better prepare for, withstand, and recover from extreme weather events and other risks related to climate change. PG&E is investing $2 million over five years in shareholder-funded grants. In 2018, PG&E focused on projects to help communities prepare for increased frequency and severity of extreme heat events, and the 2019 Resilient Communities grant program focused on wildfire risk.
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
April 20, 2017
The Southeast Sustainable Communities Fund (SSCF) supports local communities in the southeastern United States to advance climate adaptation and social equity in local government policy, plans or programs. Grants have been awarded to City and County governments and local partnerships to create socially equitable sustainable energy and/or water initiatives. The fund invested $1. 5 million in 2017 for six projects, and has allocated nearly $1. 8 million in 2018 in support of six more sustainability projects in the Southeast that are addressing climate change impacts, to be implemented across 2019 - 2020.
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
The Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) is an initiative of Enterprise Community Partners, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Low Income Investment Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council that supports equitable and resilient regional development policies and investments. SPARCC supports innovative, local efforts in six major cities throughout the country (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Memphis, and the San Francisco Bay Area) to help change the way metropolitan regions grow, invest, build, and prepare for climate change.
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
March 2019
The Opportunity Zones (OZ) program, created by the federal Opportunity Act as a part of the 2017 Tax Act , delegates to the U.S. Treasury the authority to set requirements for investment under the act’s tax credit system. The Kresge Foundation, seeing that Treasury requirements were first delayed and ultimately bare, set out to create its own set of guidelines. Kresge provides capitalization to projects in OZs to attract investment, and through covenants with its partners attempts to ensure that such investments are based in a framework of equity. Within a specific OZ, these covenants include stringent reporting requirements, the creation of a community advisory board explicitly containing members of the OZ’s community, and active promotion of OZ programs to OZ residents. Additionally, Kresge set out minimum standards for both real estate and business investments. Covenants for real estate investments include specifics such as: adopting an “anti-displacement” strategy for all housing investments, shifting focus to projects that create jobs for low-income communities, and mandating that at least 50% of all multifamily housing investments serve residents with incomes under 120% of the OZ’s average median income. For business investments, covenants include requirements that at least 50% of investments create living-wage jobs, and prohibitions on investments in industries that could be harmful to disadvantaged communities and typically create environmental justice issues. (e.g. oil, mining, firearms).
Resource Category: Solutions
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
In 2009, the Chicago 49th Ward Alderman, Joe Moore launched the first participatory budgeting process in the United States in the City of Chicago, Illinois. When participatory budgeting was first introduced in the City, Alderman Moore used the process to engage with his constituents regarding how the community would spend its $1.3 million in discretionary capital funds. Since this initial introduction, the participatory budgeting process in Chicago has proved a rousing success. In 2012, the Great Cities Institute partnered with the Participatory Budgeting Project and community-leaders from the area to launch PB Chicago to spread the budgeting process throughout the city. PB Chicago has now engaged with over 13,000 residents in 12 different communities, allocating over $18 million in funding to community-chosen projects varying from tree planting to establishing bike lanes. By focusing a majority of their outreach on marginalized and underserved communities, PB Chicago ensures not only that policymakers and city officials hear these residents’ voices, but that these same voices have the opportunity to effectuate change within their own communities as well.
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
Resource
2019
Boston’s Resilient Affordable Housing Grant Program illustrates how cities can use Section 4 Capacity Building Program grants to fund resilience investments in affordable housing. Despite having one of the narrowest housing affordability gaps in the country, Boston nevertheless faces pressures from increasing population growth. Like many urban areas across the country, Boston also faces increased incidences of climate impacts like extreme heat, coastal and riverine flooding, and more frequent stormwater flooding. In 2019, the Boston chapter of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) issued an RFP for Section 4 funding (up to $9,000) to assist community development corporations (CDCs) and community housing development organizations (CDHOs) with preparing the city’s affordable housing stock for extreme weather, sea-level rise, and other impacts of climate change. Specifically, the Resilient Affordable Housing Grant program provided funding to conduct resiliency assessments for vulnerable properties (located in the floodplain or at-risk for extreme heat), as well as for creating emergency management and training plans.
Resource Category: Funding
See Resource Login to Add to My Resource List
