The Office of Sustainability has partnered with Multnomah County Department of Human Services’s Weatherization team, the City of Wood Village, and Natural Leaders to retrofit 36 homes in the Wood Village Green Mobile Home Park with free, efficient heat pumps to heat and cool. A heat pump can replace a home’s furnace, air conditioner, or both. Because heat pumps don’t directly burn fossil fuels, installing one reduces both carbon emissions and a household’s monthly energy bill. Heat pumps are also extremely efficient, producing 3 - 4 times more cooling or heating than the energy being used to run the appliance.
Further, through this partnership, 28 free portable AC units were installed in other homes, for a total of 64 households served.
In response to these improvements and their benefits, the Mayor of the City of Wood Village, John C. Miner, shared his gratitude in this letter to Multnomah County staff.
Thanks to additional funding of $100,000 from the Oregon Department of Energy, Multnomah County staff can continue this important energy efficiency work with Natural Leaders and the Community Energy Project in Wood Village. Individuals from eligible households can attend DIY Weatherization Workshops provided by the Community Energy Project and use the Common Application to apply for weatherization services and bill assistance, among other programs.
Addressing the needs of households with low incomes remains a priority for Multnomah County, particularly as the energy burden continues to impact at least 27% of households countywide. One way to make an impact on the energy bills and other costs to individuals in our community is to improve their homes’ energy efficiency.
“When the City reached out to us about their concerns for people living in mobile homes in Wood Village I knew we could help,” said Eron Riddle, Climate Resilience Program Specialist in the Weatherization Services division. “With funding from the state and local resources, our partnership with Natural Leaders that helped us identify households in need, and a partnership with 4 local HVAC small businesses allowed us to leverage advantageous pricing. We moved quickly to help people before the summer heated up.”
“This project is a great example of why we use data to understand heat vulnerability in Multnomah County,” said Brendon Hagerty, Healthy Homes and Communities manager in the Health Department. “By making this data available we can give local policymakers the tools they need to prioritize resources that will keep the community safe.”
Most of the funding for the 34 heat pump projects came from a program that was established by the Oregon Legislature, the Community Heat Pump Deployment Program, in response to the 2021 heat dome that killed 69 people in Multnomah County alone. The legislature is considering whether to fund the program in the next State biennium.
“The Community Heat Pump Deployment Program is a vital tool for combating the climate crisis,” said John Wasiutynski, Multnomah County Sustainability Director. “That’s because a low or moderate-income household can’t afford to replace a polluting fossil fuel heater with a modern efficient heat pump that provides both cost-effective heating and cooling in one package. In our new climate reality having both heating and cooling is crucial for household health, especially in a heat island, and stopping the use of fossil fuels is vital for keeping the climate from warming any further.”
