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Home Upgrades Program celebrates a full year of free energy upgrades for Calgary homeowners

By July 31, 2024No Comments

Home Upgrades Program celebrates a full year of free energy upgrades for Calgary homeowners

CALGARY, July 26 2024 – Alberta Ecotrust FoundationKambo Energy Group and The City of Calgary are celebrating the first anniversary of the Home Upgrades Program. The program contributes to housing affordability by providing fully subsidized home energy retrofits to income-qualified households in Calgary and Edmonton.

Families in Canada who spend more than six per cent of their after-tax income on energy bills experience energy inequity. About 64,000 households in Calgary experience energy inequity (CUSP, 2019), and The City’s Climate Strategy aims to address this through Climate Equity programming.

“Housing affordability is impacted by many factors, including the rising cost of energy bills,” says Councillor Evan Spencer. “The Home Upgrades Program is the first tool we have to make an immediate and tangible improvement to the affordability and comfort of participants’ homes.”

The Home Upgrades Program (HUP) improves the efficiency, comfort and safety of participants’ homes, and reduces their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Program provides support based on the unique needs of each home, which may include high-efficiency furnaces, air sealing and insulation upgrades.

Originally from Vietnam, Jennifer Vu is a single mom who spends 27% of her income on her energy bills. She was referred to HUP through Empower Me, as her health conditions prevent her from maintaining a fixed source of income. HUP significantly improved her attic insulation (from 2” to 18”), replaced her 23-year-old water heater with a high-efficiency model and provided air sealing. Safety issues discovered during the work – including poor wiring and missing smoke detectors – were also corrected. Jennifer is a member and past president of the Calgary Vietnamese Women’s Cultural Association (CAVWA) and volunteers her time and cooking to CAVWA events.

“Families experiencing energy inequity need to make tradeoff decisions between paying for their energy bills and other essentials, such as groceries and clothing,” says Brittany Tran, Corporate Environmental Specialist, Energy Equity, City of Calgary. “The Home Upgrades Program provides life-changing support to families who are experiencing this, while also contributing toward our goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. We’re thrilled to contribute to the Home Upgrades Program.”

HUP launched in the summer of 2023 and has completed improvements to 60 homes in Calgary. The families and individuals who live in these homes benefit from reduced energy bills and a more comfortable home, while also reducing Calgary’s GHG emissions by an average of 2.0 tCO2e per home. Another 45 homes are currently receiving assessments or upgrades.  The program goal to upgrade 105 lower-income homes has been met; a waitlist is available and planning underway to continue funding the program into the future.

“The Home Upgrades Program is an excellent example of how we can improve affordability for homeowners while mitigating climate change,” says Mike Mellross, Vice President at Alberta Ecotrust Foundation. “We know there is a great need across the province for a collaborative program of this nature and are looking for opportunities to scale this work to impact more homes with additional funding support.”

“The program takes a community-focused approach and is uniquely designed to meet participants where they are,” explains Yasmin Abraham, President and Co-Founder of Kambo Energy Group. “Participants have expressed gratitude for the program’s assistance, including the installation of costly upgrades that would otherwise be out of reach. Participants who were worried about aging furnaces and hot water tanks failing, or who could not tolerate the temperatures inside their homes, now feel more comfortable and relieved knowing their appliances won’t fail during extreme weather.” Shape For more information on how to apply or become a funder, visit homeupgradesprogram.ca.

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The Home Upgrades Program is the first and only program of its kind in Alberta. It is offered by Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and Kambo Energy Group with support from major funding and program partners: The City of Calgary and the City of Edmonton. Further financial support has been provided by Alberta Ecotrust’s Climate Innovation Fund, Alberta Real Estate Foundation, McConnell Foundation and Suncor Energy Foundation, among others.  

About Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and the Climate Innovation Fund: Alberta Ecotrust Foundation is a charity working to create a healthier environment for all Albertans. As a founding member of the Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3) network, it received an endowment from the federal government to create the Climate Innovation Fund. The Fund provides a suite of programs to complement and advance the climate leadership work undertaken by the Cities of Calgary and Edmonton.

LC3 is implemented in partnership among seven local centres and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). LC3 is part of a Government of Canada investment to accelerate urban climate solutions and help achieve Canada’s climate goal of net-zero by 2050.

Alberta Ecotrust respectfully acknowledges that the province of Alberta comprises Treaty 6, Treaty 7 and Treaty 8 territory, the traditional lands of First Nations and Métis Peoples.

About Kambo Energy Group: Kambo Energy Group is a minority-owned and run social enterprise committed to improving home comfort, safety and energy efficiency in underrepresented communities. Founded in 2009, Kambo was created in response to a lack of diverse participation in utility and government retrofit programming from households with low-to-moderate incomes, diverse multicultural communities, Indigenous communities and other harder-to-reach groups. Kambo delivers three programs: Empower Me, Community Power and the Home Upgrades Program.

Sean Chu

Sean Chu arrived in Calgary from Taiwan in 1985 speaking not a word of English, and within 7 years he was a sworn officer with the Calgary Police Service. From that point on Sean worked with the Calgary Police Service as on Officer for 21 years in a number of roles until 2013.

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