New Guide on Federal Utility Allowances for Affordable Housing Owners

The California Housing Partnership, an NLIHC state partner, and the National Housing Law Project have published an Affordable Housing Owner’s Guide to Utility Allowances. The purpose of the guide is to help owners of affordable housing understand the implications of recent changes to utility allowance requirements in federal housing programs and to provide tips for assessing whether utility allowance adjustments can be used as a resource to finance or pay back the costs of energy efficiency improvements.

The guide covers basic utility allowance principles, describes the requirements and options for setting utility allowances under a range of federal programs, highlights some of the current barriers and solutions to leveraging utility allowances for financing retrofits, and provides a utility allowance checklist to help owners assess when to include utility allowance adjustments in a financing strategy for an energy efficiency retrofit.

An Affordable Housing Owner’s Guide to Utility Allowances is at: http://bit.ly/1qWoBI9