1 MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND MOTIVATION FOR em emPOWER POWER CAMPAIGN THE emPOWER OUTREACH CAMPAIGN was
catalyzed by Liberty Hill Foundation to serve as a model for enabling households across Los Angeles County to realize more fully the benefits offered by existing local and state environmental programs. Through its partnerships, emPOWER has in turn funded eight community-based organizations (CBOs) across the county to connect low-income residents to a suite of environment-related financial assistance programs, including clean and affordable energy and clean transportation. These incentive programs provide benefits including but not limited to utility bill savings, zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) incentives and energy efficiency home upgrades.
Efforts like emPOWER are essential to ensure a just transition throughout the necessary process of climate change adaptation over the next several decades. A concerted policy and advocacy effort must be made to shield disadvantaged communities from bearing the brunt of this transition. This is evident considering low-income households already face larger energy, transportation and water affordability burdens than other populations in terms of the percentage of the household income spent on utilities (for instance, see Drehobl & Ross, 2016; Pierce et al., 2019; Pierce et al., 2020). State and local agencies’ passive provision of environmental benefit programs is not sufficient to ensure household access. For instance, a recently
emPOWER: A SCALABLE MODEL FOR IMPROVING COMMUNITY ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA
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