Sustainable Homes for All: Designing a Clean Energy Incentive for Boston’s Section 8 HCV Landlords to Improve Tenant Quality of Life

Abstract

There is an urgent need for decarbonization in the residential sector given housing's significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. Low-income housing is particularly energy inefficient, contributing to harmful environmental outcomes and health and financial challenges for tenants. The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) can play a central role in residential decarbonization for low-income residents because it owns and controls a substantial portion of the housing stock. While there are significant efforts underway to decarbonize Boston’s public housing stock, there are currently no initiatives aimed at decarbonization in the Section 8 Program. Thus, the BHA can broaden its influence beyond the public sector and incentivize residential decarbonization in the private sector through its relationships with over 15,000 landlords in the Section 8 HCV Program. This thesis develops the BHA Retrofit Rewards (BRR) Program: a Program that uses monthly ‘rent boost’ to financially incentivize Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) landlords to implement clean energy upgrades in their units. This BRR Program was created through a two-step process. First, a comparative analysis of similar US programs identified the Atlanta Housing Authority's Energy Efficiency Rent Boost Program (EERB) as viable for replication in Boston. Second, a feasibility analysis was conducted to determine how the BHA’s adaptation of the EERB Program would be financed, administered, and redesigned to fit the Boston context. The results of this analysis outline a framework for a BRR Program financed by leveraging regulatory flexibility that enables higher payments to landlords within federal limits. This thesis contributes to ongoing equity-focused decarbonization initiatives at the BHA and offers a roadmap for public housing authorities and cities more broadly seeking to address the dual challenges of climate change and housing inequity.