This regional cohort-based learning opportunities were for multifamily affordable housing owners, operators, and developers to learn and implement effective and affordable strategies for making their properties more resilient to the environmental risks of their regions.
Pilot Academy Sessions - Southeast
The pilot academy began last fall and took place virtually in the Southeast.
Session 1: Assessing your climate risk
Thursday, September 30, 2021
The first session kicked-off with a regional scan of the Southeast laying out current and future climate hazards and environmental justice vulnerabilities. Attendees will communicate what types of hazards they see as their biggest risks, and learn how to assess them in order to take action.
Resources shared in this session:
- Portfolio Protect
- Strategies for Multifamily Building Resilience
- State-specific hazard sheets
- Southeast region hazard sheet
Session 2: Built Environment: Existing Portfolio
Thursday, October 14, 2021
This cohort-only session included a live demonstration of a portfolio and building-level risk assessments.
Resources shared during this session include:
- Building assessment checklist
- Keep Safe Miami
- Strategies for multifamily building resilience guide
- Health Action Plan
Session 3: Community Resilience
In a rapidly changing climate, people are a top priority, and are inextricably connected to community infrastructure. The third Resilience Academy session focused on Community Resilience – what it is, why it is important, and some tools that can be used to strengthen the resilience and agency of community members.
Marion McFadden and Jamie Albrecht from Enterprise were joined by Marissa Ramirez from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to discuss their real-world examples of the varied, but essential, ways that community members have been involved in resiliency planning.
Erika Gee of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD) joined the cohort-only session and shared examples of creative placemaking from her experience as a grantee with Chinatown CDC in San Francisco of Enterprise’s Climate and Cultural Resilience grant program.
Watch the recording of the public session.
Resources shared in both the public and cohort-only sessions include:
- Community Powered Resilience program from Enterprise
- Building to Heal: A Framework for Holistic Community Development paper from Enterprise, which also includes the Healing-Centered Project Screen on page 16-17
- Made to Last, a publication of Enterprise’s Cultural and Climate Resilience grantees
- Video of creative placemaking examples from Chinatown CDC in San Francisco
Session 4: Landscape of Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Planning
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
In this cohort-only session, participants learned about the importance of maintaining and improving their business operations to become more resilient to future crises, climate related or otherwise.
Resources shared in this session include:
- Business Continuity Toolkit for Affordable Housing Organizations
- The Sky Is Blue: Is Your House in Order?
- FHC NPCB Self-Evaluation
- Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit - Top 10 Tools
- Sample NFP Financial Analysis
- Ready to Respond: Business Continuity Toolkit
Session 5: Disaster Recovery & Funding Opportunities
Thursday, December 2, 2021
The 5th session of the Southeast Resilience Academy focused on how to navigate different funding opportunities for resilience and adaptation measures. We received information on Enterprise’s Section 4 Grant opportunity, heard about financing with a green bank through SELF as well as the new Energy Efficiency Rent Boost program launched with the Atlanta Housing Authority. During the cohort only session, IBTS led us through making the case for resilience, government change, tools, applying for funding (roadmap) and how to take action.
Session Recording:
Resources shared in this session include:
Session 6: Your New-Construction Portfolio
Thursday, December 16, 2021
The 6th and final session of the Southeast academy focused on what mitigation and adaptation opportunities are there for new developments to protect and prepare buildings and residents for extreme weather events.
We examined what makes a cost-effective framework for all affordable housing development, aligning funding sources, and evaluating results using Enterprise Green Communities Criteria. Additionally, case studies by the University Area CDC and Urban Housing Solutions were presented.
Resources shared in this session include:
- Presentation from University Area CDC
- Presentation from Dr. Jennifer Languell, Trifecta Construction
Please reach out with any questions about the Resilience Academy program to our team at resilienceacademy@enterprisecommunity.org.
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