Elevate’s Building Equity Summit 2024

Protecting Yourself from Home-Based Lead Hazards – Overview, How-To, & FAQ

This workshop will provide an overview of lead paint and lead in water, describe
some of the successes and challenges of Elevate’s lead programs, and provide opportunities for both group and one-on-one Q&A with Elevate staff—connecting community members with information and resources on how to mitigate their risk of exposure.

Presenters

Justin Keller, Megan Borneman, Ruth Kerzee

Room

504

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: What It Is and How To Get Involved

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) is a new federal financing source that promises to unlock significant amounts of financing for green, healthy buildings and other climate action investments. Affordable housing providers, community-based organizations, local financial institutions, policy advocates, green building experts, and many other groups have important other roles to play. This panel will talk about the opportunities newly available through GGRF and how organizations of many types can participate.

Presenters

Bob Dean, Abby Francisco, Traci Sanders (Enterprise Community Partners)

Room

503

Building Blocks: Black and Brown-led Community Investment & Clean Energy

This session engages leaders at the forefront of economic development, committed to Black-led reinvestment in historically disinvested corridors in Chicago. The discussion will explore wealth-building from an economic development lens, as well as challenges and successful strategies for leveraging clean energy investment in communities of color.

Presenters

ChaNell Marshall co-presenting with Ja’Net Defell (President/CEO of Community Desk Chicago)

Room

UNIV B

Advancing Heat Pump Adoption through Regional Workforce Development Collaboration

When it comes to heat pump adoption, one of the first observations is “how can we ensure a qualified and skilled workforce to meet the installation demand?” Through regional collaboration and partnership between Elevate, the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE), Slipstream, and Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA), we are proactively collaborating to meet the demand. This workshop will share strategies, tools, and resources to create and sustain high quality jobs and contracting opportunities for communities that have been historically marginalized: including black, indigenous, people of color communities, within the air source heat pump ecosystem. Our organizations have developed and are implementing a partner collaboration cycle for increasing the number of workers and contractors in the heat pump industry. There is a role for trade schools, community colleges, contractors, and distributors, which will be identified and explored in this session. We look forward to sharing more about this work, which is a part of the Midwest Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) Collaborative. We formed in 2022 to accelerate ASHP adoption in the Midwest. Our goal is that by 2030, ASHP technology is the first choice for contractors and homeowners replacing heating systems or air conditioners, optimized to provide heating and cooling.

Presenters

Melissa Gombar, Sarita Turner, Slipstream

Room

701

Policy Barriers to Electrification Across the Midwest

We are envisioning this workshop to describe and educate policy barriers to electrification across the midwest- taken from Elevate’s experience electrifying over 400 homes in the midwest. This can range from technical, structural, administrative, bureaucratic, policy barriers, etc. It is a complex structure between federal and state and there are many policy barriers involved. This policy barriers can limit the work Elevate does and the programs we implement.

Presenters

MeLena Hessel, Mike Berkowitz, Jaime Capece, Heather Allen, Kimberly Loewen

Room

504

Healthy Homes for Healthy Families

Healthy Homes for Healthy Families launched in 2023 with the goal of providing comprehensive, high-quality healthy homes, water conservation, and deep energy retrofits to suburban Cook County residents to reduce negative health and environmental impacts, improve resident well-being, and reduce utility cost burden. A partnership among Elevate, Cook County Department of Environment and Sustainability, and Cook County Department of Public Health, the program is unique in its approach tackling environmental justice issues through a Healthy Homes framework to realize energy cost savings for participants. With nearly $30
million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), Healthy Homes for Healthy Families is on track to complete retrofits at more than 450 homes in suburban Cook County through 2026. In this workshop, our team will provide analysis of measures completed to date and outline challenges, wins, lessons learned – looking toward future areas of study on the topic of fusing Healthy Homes principles with whole-home electrification goals.

Presenters

Laura Schuetz, Karen Kaminsky, Carrie Donohoe, Andrew Krein

Room

702

Extreme Heat and Adaptive Capacity

With the risks from extreme heat being exacerbated by climate change, Elevate’s Research & Innovation team has focused much of our work on understanding different facets of the issue (e.g. risk perceptions, indoor air temperatures, cooling strategies and adaptive capacity, etc.). In this session, we’ll open with a screening of COOKED: Survival By Zip Code, to provide context and define the problem. Then, we’ll highlight the work R&I is doing, including our collaboration with various partners, to develop a better understanding of extreme heat concerns and potential solutions. We’ll conclude by featuring the incredible work by our partners in UnBlocked Englewood.

Presenters

Jourdan Nash, Rachel Scheu, Paige Neri, UnBlocked Englewood

Room

UNIV A

Cyber Equity – Securing a Future for Every Community

This workshop is designed as a breakout session at the upcoming Elevate Summit, our intent is to spark thinking about a proactive approach to cyber security that’s inclusive, practical, and empowering for every member of our most vulnerable communities.

We propose an engaging session aimed at narrowing the cyber security gap in America’s heartland—from the industrious cities of the Midwest to the expansive landscapes of the Northwest. Learn how local businesses and communities can leverage national initiatives and regional support to enhance their cyber security readiness.

Presenters

Carl Hertz, Jules Okafor (CEO & Founder RevolutionCyber)

Room

702

The Building Energy Resource Hub – What Is It and How Can It Serve Your Work?

The Building Energy Resource Hub is a project created by Illinois Green Alliance and Elevate in partnership with the Illinois Climate Bank, ComEd and the City of Chicago. The Hub serves as a clearinghouse for building retrofit, energy efficiency, and decarbonization resources. The purpose of the Hub is to provide education and training to building professionals, prepare workforce by supporting diverse contractors, connect contractors to a project pipeline, increase compliance with advanced codes and policies and streamline access to financial resources. As advanced building energy codes and policies will evolve across the State over the next several years, programs and offerings provided by the Hub are also under development and will change over time. This workshop will explore how Elevate’s work may fit within the Hub, increase awareness of the Hub and what it is intended to achieve. Partners will also be encouraged to share how their work might fit within the Hub, and how the Hub may best serve the industry.

Presenters

Amy Jewel, Dara Reiff, Paula McGuire-Rowe, Ana Padilla

Room

503

How to Launch and Manage a Successful Project

This workshop is presented by the Elevate PMO and is intended to provide project managers (PMs) and those aspiring to get into a project management role the tools needed to be successful. What steps should you take once you have been assigned the role of PM? We will walk you through the lifecycle of the project beginning with your role once awarded through the close-out of the project.

Presenters

Claus Jensen, Colleen Collins, Justin Davis, Elizabeth Judson

Room

701