Climate Adaptation Resources related to Low-income Communities
This tab includes resources that address the disproportionate impacts of climate change for low-income communities.
Resources are automatically presented by date. Apply additional filters to narrow the list by resource category, organization type of resource author, impact, jurisdictional focus, state, or region.
171 results are shown below.
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Resource
2016
The Harlem Heat Project is a community-based initiative that began in New York City in the summer of 2016. It combines crowd-sourcing, data reporting, and narrative journalism to tell the story or urban heat islands in New York City. Non-profit journalism and community-based organizations came together to provide low-cost heat sensors to homeowners in "heat-vulnerable" areas of Harlem in New York City. The data was used to tell the story of disproportionate risks to extreme heat for lower-income and communities of color as a result of increasing temperatures from climate change.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
February 15, 2017
This summary report describes the conversations and discussions of participants during a two-day workshop help in April 2016 focusing on on city-level actions that would support social justice goals and better prepare communities for the effects of climate change. The workshop convened nearly 50 thought leaders on equity and climate adaptation, including city officials, representatives of environmental justice and social justice organizations, state and federal partners, and funders who support this work.
Authors or Affiliated Users: Melissa Deas , Jessica Grannis , James DeWeese , Sara Hoverter
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
February 1, 2017
This report identifies market barriers to deploying solar and energy storage technologies in low-income markets, and proposes more than 50 grant and investment opportunities that socially-minded investors can use to target those barriers. Solar and energy storage can further climate adaptation by helping communities avoid power outages. The report includes a detailed analysis of the energy market and a matrix of interventions organized according to market participant, barriers, and difficulty.
Authors or Affiliated Users: Lew Milford, Robert Sanders
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
January 2017
This strategy document is the culmination of a process that began in November 2007 to review and update the Department of Energy (DOE) 1995 Environmental Justice Strategy. The strategy describes DOE’s plan for complying with Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Population (Clinton, 1994). The strategy outlines its objectives to integrate environmental justice into National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementation, minimize climate change impacts on vulnerable people, and comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
2017
New York City’s Universal Access to Legal Representation Law (or Right to Counsel (RTC)) is the first in the country to provide right-to-counsel in housing cases. The 2017 law allocates $155 million over five years to a program that provides free legal representation to tenants for eviction or other housing-related matters. Since its inception, the program has raised the number of represented tenants from 10 to over 27%, decreased evictions by 23%, and has saved the city an estimated $320 million per year. Initially implemented in the Bronx, the program is set to expand to other boroughs beginning in 2020.
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Resource
2016
In 2015-2016, RainReady partnered with the Chicago Department of Planning and Development to provide free repairs and flood mitigation retrofits to select homeowners that experienced property damage during Chicago’s 2013 flood, through a unique program called the Residential Flood Assistance Program (RFAP). The program was funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR).
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
October 27, 2016
This white paper is focused on New York City’s Build it Back program following Hurricane Sandy, highlighting its commitment to equity in the rebuilding of residential neighborhoods. The Sandy Build it Back program set a precedent for local hiring resulting in career-track jobs for low-income Sandy-impacted residents. The paper relates the context and a vision for equity in recovery, describes Build it Back’s primary successes, and offers key lessons learned and areas of improvement.
Resource Category: Solutions
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Resource
October 27, 2016
The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Justice 2020 Action Agenda (EJ 2020) is the Agency’s environmental justice strategic plan for 2016 to 2020. The plan focuses on the environmental and public health issues for the nation’s minority, low-income, tribal and indigenous populations - and includes information on EPA’s climate justice initiatives. The goals of the agenda are to further integrate environmental justice considerations in all of the Agency’s programs; strengthen EPA’s collaboration with federal, state, tribal, community, and industry partners partners; and demonstrate progress on significant national challenges facing minority and low-income communities.
Resource Category: Planning
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Resource
2016
The Center for NYC Neighborhoods and the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery in New York launched an $8 million resiliency program in New York City for low- and moderate-income homeowners in 2016. To support this program, they created a free interactive website which provides NYC homeowners with personalized information on flood risks and flood insurance rates. One goal of the program is to connect low- and middle-income homeowners with engineers in select coastal communities to provide resiliency audits so they can reduce their risk to future floods and lower their insurance rates.
Resource Category: Adaptation Websites
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The National Equity Atlas, created by PolicyLink and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, is an online tool that allows users to find information on demographic changes, racial and economic inclusion, and potential economic gains from racial equity. Data is available for the largest 100 cities, 150 metropolitan regions, and all 50 states in the United States. While this resource does not address climate change, it can provide useful information to frame environmental justice and equity challenges that may be exacerbated by climate change.
Resource Category: Data and tools
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