Report: A Green New Deal for American Public Housing Communities
National Report
The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders in November 2019, would undertake a decade of decarbonization and capital repairs to the country’s public building stock (that is, homes managed by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) as well as some tribal housing), tackling climate change and inequality at the same time.
As articulated in House Resolution 109, introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Ed Markey, the Green New Deal’s core priorities include aggressive cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, widespread green job creation, and addressing inequalities of race and class. The resolution explicitly calls for direct green investment in frontline communities as a way to achieve these goals in the short term.
This targeted investment is often critiqued as an expensive and distracting add-on to decarbonization. But in fact, green social policy is a strategic lever to slash emissions directly by eliminating fossil fuel use and indirectly by growing the coalition for decarbonization. The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act would create over 240,000 jobs per year countrywide, creating far more construction jobs in red states than blue states, and slashing annual carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars on the road.
The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act is a wise use of resources: the public sector already owns the buildings; they are in desperate need of maintenance already; green retrofits that slash carbon emissions, improve health and comfort, build community resiliency centers, and create jobs in neighborhoods with high unemployment, will together make huge improvements to people’s everyday lives while building political support for more climate action.