2021 Quick Start Grant Recipients
Revalue
Overview
Revalue will 1) remediate home health hazards or code violations in low-income West Oakland households through electrification and 2) provide training to contractors and apprentices to improve the diversity of the local HVAC workforce.
Market Barrier
Low-income households often are not served by existing home retrofit programs for a variety of reasons, and these same households often contain home health hazards or code violations. In addition, many programs have difficulty reaching target communities due to a lack of cultural relevance and community familiarity when existing building electrification contractors do not reflect the communities they intend to serve.
Proposed Solution
Revalue will provide direct heat pump installations for water heating and space heating and cooling, focusing on properties that its GIS data platform identifies as targets based on existing code complaints, age, operating expenses, and other variables. Half of the project funds will support existing local diverse contractor training programs in collaboration with the Cypress Mandela Training Center; these apprentices and contractors will then have a project pipeline from program installations.
Theory of Change
This project aims to accelerate the electrification of homes in underserved communities by building local contractor understanding and capacity, increasing owner and tenant understanding and acceptance of electrification, streamlining and combining various funding resources to finance projects, and developing a project pipeline for contractors to create local, sustainable careers.
Project Status:
In progress
Housing:
Multifamily deed-restricted affordable housing
Technology:
HPWH, central HPWH boilers; split, packaged, and ductless mini-split HVAC systems
Location:
West Oakland, CA