Building Resilient Homes to Build Resilient Communities Workshop

The Building Resilient Homes to Build Resilient Communities workshop on July 25th demonstrated the positive impact of coordinated energy efficiency and seismic safety efforts. This is one of a series of workshops. It featured cost effective resources and initiatives that are designed to create energy efficient and resilient homes and communities. Presenters noted that supportive financing and coordinated resources will help communities improve health and safety and that regional collaboration is a place to build these integrations.



Using resources featured at the workshop, such as the Bay Area Regional Energy Network, homeowners can make upgrades to insulation, heating, and air conditioning, and windows to increase comfort and efficiency. Another program that will benefit homes is the Earthquake Brace and Bolt Program, focused on seismic safety.



For many homeowners, it is a matter of health and safety, and the featured Marin Green and Healthy Homes Initiative program, is designed to address improvements that may protect residents from lead poising and asthma.



The Marin Homeowner Toolkit was featured as a resource to aggregate all program information and contact information that a homeowner may consider in a single place.



If you are interested in developing a toolkit for your city or county and want to use the

Marin example as a template, contact Kellen Dammann at kdammann@marincounty.org.



Programs such as these are designed to achieve the greatest impact with the least amount of burden on tenants and homeowners. ABAG is working with cities and counties to identify and build on existing examples to help other cities and counties move forward and expand energy efficiency and resilience in their communities.



All workshop materials are available at http://resilience.abag.ca.gov/building-resilient-homes-to-build-resilient-communities-workshop/.



The next workshop in the series is titled Planning for an Uncertain Energy Future: Energy Assurance for Resilience and Sustainability and will be held on September 28th at the Bay Area Metro Center, 375 Beale Street, Yerba Buena Room, in San Francisco.



If you have questions, contact Michael Germeraad at michaelg@abag.ca.gov.