Collectrify Health Benefits of Electrification Panel
February 2025
Our February Learning Community Collaboratory Meeting featured a panel of Collectrify grantee partner experts on the health benefits of transitioning away from fossil fuels in homes.
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Jeff Jones, Executive Director and Debbie Fisher, Special Projects Director of Hope
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Village Revitalization in Detroit
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Courtney Hanson, Deputy Director of People for Community Recovery in Chicago
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Martha Dina Arguello, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles
The panel highlights reel can be found below.
Key Takeaways
The health benefits of electrification panelists shared how they are tackling housing stability, energy affordability, public health, and climate justice through equitable building electrification and community-led change.
Key insights from this powerful discussion:
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Homes are our most valuable asset—holistic home upgrades that include energy efficiency, solar and electrification facilitate safe, healthy, affordable and sustainable housing.
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Healthy housing reduces stress—lower energy costs alleviate financial burdens.
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The combination of heat pumps and solar—dramatically reduced home utility bills in Collectrify partner communities.
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Combustion appliances in homes harms human health—equitable building electrification leads to health benefits.
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Building connections between the equitable building electrification and aligned movements like those focused on housing and tenants' rights is crucial to tackling housing affordability and preventing displacement and creating healthy, resilient communities.
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Ensuring homeowners have the resources to address deferred maintenance, perform comprehensive home energy and electrification upgrades helps to build generational wealth for families and improve health outcomes for communities.
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Creating land trusts and alternative ownership models are essential—they expand homeownership opportunities, prevent land speculation, and support energy upgrades.
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Continuing to build capacity in community partner teams—investments in electrification training, workforce and housing development expertise—are essential in order to reach equitable building electrification at scale.
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Philanthropy’s role is critical—funders are needed now more than ever to scale solutions.
The Collectrify February 13 Learning Community Collaboratory meeting was a bright spot in challenging times and centered on solutions, opportunities, and collaborative innovation.
