Going Retro

YAKIMA, WASHINGTON - Check your Merriam-Webster dictionary for a definition of the prefix "retro" and you'll find it means "backward." When you say, for example, that folks are "going retro" with the fashions they're wearing or the furniture they're putting in their living rooms, it means they're going back to styles popular a decade or even a century ago.

You might think, then, that "going retro" in housing would mean new houses designed for candles and not electricity, outhouses and not indoor plumbing. Think again. Because these days "going retro" in housing means going forward, heading into the future, using the latest energy-efficient technologies to cut consumption, costs and consequences to our environment.

Like the $3.8 million in "green retrofit" projects funded by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act put to work beginning this past summer at affordable housing in seven communities in Washington state - Boundary Village in Blaine, Ferndale Villa in Ferndale, Moses Lake Estates Skagit Village in Mount Vernon, Washington Square in Othello, Cascade Village in Stevenson, Wapato Gardens in Wapato and Providence Housing in Yakima.

All of the complexes are privately-owned, built 20 to 30 years ago under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Section 515 Rural Housing Loan Program and currently receiving rental subsidies from HUD to keep them affordable to the low-income elderly and people with disabilities. They're well-maintained properties but, given their age, they're not as snug, not as energy-efficient as they could be. And that's where the green retrofit program comes in.

Washington already is one of the greenest states in the country. These projects will help it become even greener. Thanks to the HUD Recovery Act funds the almost 300 units will be getting energy-efficient windows, appliance, heating and cooling systems, plumbing, insulation and building envelopes. As a result, many of the complexes expect to use up to 30 percent less energy.

There's one more bit of good news to consider. In the current economic downturn, a lot of folks in the construction trades are out of work. These projects have gotten them back to work. Better still, are helping them get ready to compete where, most economists say, the jobs of the future will be generated – "green" industries. Indeed, HUD's "green retrofit" program is yet another step in its partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Labor to, as HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan noted, "use Recovery Act funds to put Americans back to work and to spur a new home energy efficiency industry that could create tens of thousands of jobs."

"We are obliged," explained Tim Zaricznyj, Director of Housing for Providence Health and Services which operates the Yakima complex, "to not only care for our residents, but to also care for our physical plant as well as attend to the environment." These retrofit grants "allow us to enhance the beauty and function of Providence House for our residents and also reduce the carbon footprint of the physical plant at the same time."

With apologies to Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster and their definition of "retro," that's about as forward-looking a vision as you'll find anywhere.

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