Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center
As prepared
Good morning.
It’s a pleasure to be here this morning to help celebrate 25 years of the Affordable Housing Conference.
Everyone here in this room, and your predecessors, have contributed to making this a better County.
Working together, government, private industry and non-profits have helped to create a County that cares about affordable housing.
Over the last few years, we have made some great progress.
The County has built, acquired and preserved about 12,000 units of affordable housing for working families.
We have invested more than $320 million in the Housing Initiative Fund to work with community institutions to increase the supply of affordable housing.
You and I and the members of my Administration are dedicated to affordable housing not only because it is the right thing to do, but because of the crucial role housing plays in fighting poverty.
Matthew Desmond is a Harvard sociologist and MacArthur “genius” award winner who recently published a book on housing.
He summed up his findings by saying, “It’s just really clear to me that we can’t fix poverty without fixing housing.”
Without affordable housing, everything else in a person’s life takes second place. They might have to move farther from work and lose their jobs, or miss appointments for social services, Desmond writes.
Looking for housing is a full-time job, which makes it harder to have a full-time paying job.
On the other hand, having a stable place to live allows people to become connected to their communities and schools for their children.
We cannot ignore, however, that for as much as we have done, we still have a long way to go.
There are many challenges that low-income residents face in maintaining their housing.
Research has found one big reason is the ever-increasing costs of utilities.
This is important because it’s not enough simply to have the rent be affordable. The total cost of living in a unit has to be affordable, and utility costs are continually rising.
A study by the GW Solar Institute found electricity costs make up a larger share of a family budget for low-income households than for affluent ones.
We have a prime example right here, as Pepco recently asked the state for a 15 percent rate hike just days after being acquired by Exelon.
There is something that you can start to do about this by taking a lead from Montgomery County.
We are aggressively making sure our buildings are energy efficient, as I am sure you are doing also.
But even more, you can join us as a leader in our commitment to clean energy. Last fall, I announced our Solar and Advanced Energy Initiative to drive green job creation, reduce greenhouse gases and improve community resilience to climate change.
By the end of this year, we will have installed solar arrays on 14 Montgomery County government buildings, ranging from libraries to rec centers to the Silver Spring Civic Center. This initiative will save us $11 million over the next 20 years.
You can become part of what is becoming a national trend – bringing the benefits of solar energy to those living in low-income neighborhoods -- group that the solar boom has so far missed.
We need to work on this because solar energy can provide relief for struggling families through lower utility bills.
The U.S. Department of Energy recognizes this challenge with its Clean Energy for Low Income Communities Accelerator program with the primary purpose of lowering energy costs.
One way to help speed up the trend is to install solar panels on rooftops, and use the power to cover costs of your common areas while lowering bills.
In a few months, there will be another way when the state approves new rules for community solar projects.
This arrangement allows people to obtain energy from large arrays not on the property, which gives developers much more flexibility.
Solar projects to serve low-income communities are already in place across the country as close as Washington, D.C. to Baltimore to New York, to California.
The potential market for this is large, as is the capacity to create new jobs and increase our production of clean energy.
Many of you have staff who already work on sustainability who are knowledgeable about renewable energy.
Groups like Maryland Sun and Grid Alternatives can offer expertise, as can our experts in County government.
Let’s work together for a bright future for affordable housing in Montgomery County.
Thank you for all you do.
Release ID: 16-015