Green Loans for Community Housing - consultations

 On July 1 2009 the Australian Government launched the Green Loans Program.  The aim of the program is to assist households in becoming more energy and water efficient.  The program offers a free Home Sustainability Assessment to identify efficiency opportunities and low-cost finance to help make the improvements. 

This project is being supported by the Community Housing Federation of Australia (CHFA).  CHFA and state and territory peak community housing bodies will provide assistance to the researchers conducting this work.  It is also important that community housing organisations have direct input into this project. 

The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) is seeking to engage community housing organisations so they can also benefit from the Green Loans Program.  In order to best tailor the program to suit community housing organisations, the Australian Government needs to better understand the issues and constraints faced by the sector. 

Accordingly, this research project is designed to collect information regarding:
 ·      community housing stock and its current energy efficiency status;
 ·      what improvements organisations in the sector may be interested in making  to their housing stock; 
·      the barriers that organisations interested in the Green Loans Program may experience. 

The researchers will be conducting telephone interviews with interested organisations for this project in the following weeks.  This will allow input and opinions from the sector to be fed into the Government's work to customise the program and ensure an equitable outcome for people and organisations participating in the program, including community housing organisations and their tenants. 

For more information and to register your interest in participating in this very important study, please contact: 
Sid Thoo or Winnie Killick sid@architecture.net.au or wkillick@ecoadvance.com.au