Missoula panel: local groups push energy upgrades for affordable housing as aid and contractors tighten

At a panel in Missoula, panelists from Climate Smart Missoula, Human Resource Council District 11 and Habitat for Humanity of Missoula urged faster, better-funded energy-efficiency work for low-income homes while warning that federal and local support is unstable.

The issue is urgent, panel moderator Derek Goldman said: “a household’s energy burden can have detrimental impacts on affordability and the overall quality of life.” Goldman cited the Department of Housing and Urban Development definition that an affordable energy burden is no more than 6% of household income and noted that “here in Montana, 27 percent of households, nearly a 20,000 of them have higher than 6% energy costs compared to 20% nationally.”

Panelists said the community has local successes but faces funding cuts, contractor shortages and program complexity that limit scale. Amy Sillenberg, executive director of Climate Smart Missoula, highlighted a range of local efforts — municipal rebates for heat-pump water heaters, a county-run home upgrade hub for outreach and a Climate Smart carbon-offset fund that helped pay for heat pumps in low-income veteran housing. “We started a carbon offset footprint fund at Climate Smart, where we could fill the gap,” Sillenberg said.

Jessica Harrell, residential energy services manager at…