Building Safety, Climate Change, and Equity

Sarah Sax reports in High Country News on the equity issues inherent in building safety, focusing on the city of Portland. "On average, Black, Latino and low-income families live in less energy-efficient homes and pay more for their energy, with low-income households spending the most, up to 38% of their income, according to the Oregon Energy Fund." In addition to the cost burden, access to heating and cooling can be a matter of life or death, as last year's deadly heat dome brought into stark focus. According to Sax, "At its core, safe, clean and affordable heating and cooling has become a justice issue."

Sax profiles the Build/Shift Collective, a community group made up of people of color and low-income renters in Portland.

Buildings are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., but the push to decarbonize them needs to involve more than just emissions, the activists believe. Decarbonization should also account for the unequal effects of climate change, racist housing policies and air pollution on communities of color, and it should strive to make sure everyone has access to a healthy home, not just an energy-efficient one.

The collective wants to ensure that residents don't lose housing in the effort to make buildings more safe and efficient. The group is working with the city to develop a set of rules called the Health, Equitable Energy, Anti-Displacement, Resilience, and Temperature control, or HEART, standards, which "would require landlords to insulate all units properly and have air conditioning installed" and "make sure that renters have the resources to push back whenever housing isn’t up to code, without fear of eviction."

The group is also seeking more representation for historically dismissed voices. "The collective wants more BIPOC representatives to help draft and make policy, but also to change where and how policy is made."