Blog

Matt is Sustainable Development Manager for National Housing Trust.

National Housing Trust is a mission-driven nonprofit that strives to ensure our nation's rental housing remains affordable and sustainable - a key piece of expanding local economic opportunity. 

Workers who are critical to our communities - like teachers, firefighters, police and other service providers - depend on rental housing for access to quality education, meaningful job opportunities, and healthy neighborhoods with low crime. 

With communities struggling to recover from the economic and foreclosure crises, the need for affordable housing is especially acute. 

To strengthen the communities that we serve, we joined with other community organizations and faith institutions to purchase clean energy at a reduced rate. In partnership with Groundswell, membership organizations of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation and groups like Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light and CLAIM, we produced a clean energy effort of $5 million.

We bought 100 percent wind-produced electricity at four of our affordable housing properties in D.C. and locked in a rate that will save us more than 25 percent on our bills. We're projected to save thousands of dollars over the course of three years. 

We'll use the savings to help improve the lives of nearly 300 low-income families by reinvesting those dollars into the upkeep of properties and supporting the afterschool programs offered to families through our Resident Services program. 

Preserving affordable housing in distressed neighborhoods, in particular, can revitalize the entire community. 

To read more stories about community members and organizations that have benefited by coming together to purchase energy, follow Groundswell on Facebook.  

I'm part of a passionate circle of volunteers, community members, former staff and Board members who created the Founding Supporters Challenge. Inspired by Groundswell's extraordinary impact, we're eager to see this work grow.

Please consider investing in our work with a contribution. 

Invest Today and Our Founding Supporters Will Double Your Impact

After starting and running a successful international nonprofit over the last decade, I've worked to support new social sector organizations.

Groundswell's pioneering model, which pursues both environmental and social impacts, convinced me to invest deeper in this idea and join the Board as Chair.  

Groundswell's work is incredibly timely. Turbulent economic forces and growing economic inequality are battering communities across the U.S., while environmental threats loom. In the face of these unfolding challenges, local communities often feel powerless.

Our innovative model organizes the latent economic power of communities to help put them back in the driver's seat of growing their local economies in an equitable and environmentally sustainable way. Our approach, which has generated excitement from the Clinton Global Initiative to the White House, has been featured in The New York Times and GOOD Magazine. 

And, crucially, it's being led and implemented by a visionary and passionate group of individuals committed to growing our impact and expanding our reach to more communities across the country. I invite you to join us in support of this amazing work.

Donate by May 15 and We'll Match Your Investment

We partnered with membership organizations to organize more than 100 D.C.- and Maryland-based faith, community and labor institutions to produce a clean energy effort of nearly $5 million. Almost 90 percent of the investment was tied to clean energy, equal to the amount of energy that 5,000 homes consume in one year. Participants saved approximately 20 percent on their annual energy bills and can channel those savings to their community work. 

I hope you'll take the next step and donate. Thank you for your generous support.

Brett Wiley is the Lead Organizer of the Strong Homes Program.

Since we began our community engagement work around energy efficiency in D.C. nearly three years ago, we've found that one of the biggest barriers to community members weatherizing isn't even cost: It's information.

Sorting through the different types of services, the alphabet soup of technical terms that need to be deciphered in order to evaluate a business’ services and record of experience delivering quality work at a reasonable price can be overwhelming.

One role that our program plays is helping community members separate the wheat from the chaff. 

We hope that by demystifying the weatherization process and explaining key terms, we can provide communities the resources they need to move forward with investing in energy upgrades.

There’s some crucial information about the very first step in the weatherization process – energy assessments – that all communities should know: Not all energy assessments are the same. 

Some assessments lack important tests that take into account the health and safety of a home and its residents. 

How can you know whether an assessment includes health and safety tests?

A Building Performance Institute (BPI)-certified assessment is becoming the industry standard. For example, the contractors with whom we partner cannot begin installing energy upgrades without a full assessment of a home's energy usage, drafts, health and safety.

Since the launch of our work, Strong Homes Program participants have received BPI-certified assessments. These evaluations are crucial for ensuring the air inside a home is healthy and your gas appliances are working properly. This helps reduce the risk of respiratory illnesses like asthma.

The District Department of the Environment's free energy assessment program for D.C. residents does not offer BPI-certified assessments. If you completed a DDOE free energy assessment and would like to move forward with recommended upgrades, email Ayla ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) your electronic report. We’ll review it for recommendations and help you participate in one of our projects, which include BPI-certified assessments. 

If you have not completed an energy assessment or upgrades, sign up to participate in the Strong Homes Program - making your home comfortable and healthy while saving you money on your project and energy bills.