By Ravi Malhotra, Originally published in NH&RA Tax Credit Advisor, January 2024
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) are providing the best business case ever, for “greening” multifamily affordable housing (MFAH). Between the massive amounts of new funding and the growing pressure to decarbonize your MFAH properties, “business as usual” designs or retrofit solutions are rapidly becoming impractical. The good news for MFAH owners and managers is that there are plenty of resources on how to navigate this new landscape to “green” your MFAH properties and achieve meaningful benefits at little to no cost.
In collaboration with NH&RA, ICAST (International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology) has produced a Resource Guide to help MFAH stakeholders access these federal funds before they are spent (and they are being spent at a very rapid rate). The Guide consolidates extensive research, analysis, and insights from key stakeholders, all into one place, to empower MFAH owners with the knowledge needed to make the best decisions for their properties and tenants. It contains:
- summaries of the various financial resources available to MFAH,
- examples of how to leverage and comingle these funds for “green” projects, and
- answers to frequently asked questions on green technologies.
The Guide presents each funding source separately to give readers a sense of its scope and function. For example, some funds can only be used for specific solutions (e.g., heat pumps), while others may be used for multiple solutions to achieve a specific goal, e.g., energy savings, green certifications, or decarbonization. It’s crucial to tap every opportunity to move federal funding toward the chronically underserved MFAH market. ICAST will be regularly updating this document as more information about IRA and BIL becomes available. Access it here: https://www.icastusa.org/education/irabilresourceguide/