State of the State of Equitable Building Electrification

By Jennifer Somers and Jamesa Johnson-Greer

On February 12, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized its repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, the bedrock climate regulation in the United States for more than fifteen years. The latest in a series of rapid, deliberate clawbacks that have dismantled federal climate commitments and stripped resources from the communities that need them most, this action incapacitates regulations across the power, transportation, and oil and gas sectors. We know whose interests this free pass to pollute serves—and whose lives it puts at risk.

Why Buildings, Why Now

Those lives belong, disproportionately, to people living in limited-wealth and historically marginalized communities. For them, the stakes are especially high. More than 60 percent of U.S. households still rely on fossil-fuel systems—gas furnaces, water heaters, and stoves—for cooking and heating. These systems worsen indoor air quality and keep families tethered to increasingly unaffordable utility bills. Average residential electricity prices rose 33 percent between 2019 and 2024, and residential gas prices rose a staggering 46 percent, both outpacing the cumulative inflation rate of 26 percent over that same span (Krieger, May 2026). With buildings accounting for more than 30 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions each year (EPA), they are central to the crises of climate change, public health, and energy and housing affordability. 

Yet they are also central to the solution. Equitable building electrification, which is the work of replacing harmful gas systems with high-efficiency electric alternatives like heat pumps and induction stoves, is one of the most powerful levers we have to address these interconnected crises. And as the affordability crisis intensifies, the opportunity equitable building electrification has to lower electricity bills for the families who need relief most is increasingly urgent. For Collectrify and our partners, equitable building electrification means ensuring that the communities most impacted by the fossil fuel industry are the ones driving the transition to clean energy, shaping policies and solutions that affect their lives. 

Prevailing Headwinds

For decades, frontline communities have been underfunded and under-resourced to lead work in energy and climate. The dominant approach to meeting large-scale energy and decarbonization goals treated equity as an afterthought, with programs often designed without the communities most affected at the table. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law finally began to deliver resources for frontline communities to do this work—then came the dismantling of IRA commitments, such as the gutting of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that included the $7 billion Solar for All program, followed by constraints placed on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit market. At the same time, the Weatherization Assistance Program and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, core U.S. housing and energy programs, continue to face mounting threats, even as energy costs soar due to geopolitical uncertainty.

Finally, there’s the repeal of the Endangerment Finding itself, alongside political decisions to double down on fossil fuels, both of which exacerbate the underlying challenges of housing and energy affordability. Taken together, these actions are a deliberate dismantling of climate protection for communities and the planet—and of the democratic structures that make community-led solutions possible. Our philanthropic partner Ben Passer, Director of Midwest Climate and Energy at the McKnight Foundation, argues in a recent Atmos essay that climate solutions depend on defending our democracy. He urges funders to “move resources to organizations aiding communities and working to ensure our democratic norms are not further eroded” and asserts that “this is the decisive decade—but not just for climate.” We agree that an investment in democracy is an investment in climate, energy, and housing. And we believe that investments made today are the foundation for community-centered solutions tomorrow.

What Community-Led Looks Like in Practice 

Founded by climate and housing justice leaders, Collectrify grew from the premise that frontline and fenceline communities must lead the transition away from fossil fuels in homes and community-serving facilities. Frontline leaders know which solutions will work in their communities because they live there—and because they will still be there long after any particular initiative or policy ends. They know what narrative framing will land because they know their communities and their people. They already carry the insight from lived experience that funders and large, well-resourced environmental organizations often spend considerable time and resources trying to approximate. They are already advancing building electrification, usually without adequate funding, and against policy frameworks that were never designed with them in mind. 

For decades, upgrading the built environment and climate solutions have been pursued without adequately resourcing the leaders closest to the work, and it simply isn’t working. We aren’t winning. 

Collectrify exists to change this.

Through the three pillars of our work, we direct funding and resources to grassroots leaders pursuing long-term, self-determined strategies for equitable decarbonization. In practice, this means we invest in equitable building electrification where people live and work, the skilled workforce to make it real, policy built to last, a growing movement of advocates, and narrative and culture shift to make energy and housing affordability possible and permanent. We also facilitate collaborative learning through our Learning Community Collaboratory, a national community of practice, where grantee and funder partners and allies share knowledge, build political and power analyses to advance equitable building electrification, and refine implementation strategies together. And we build direct partnerships between funders and frontline leaders so resources flow to organizations historically excluded from traditional funding streams and investments align with community-identified needs.

Trust shapes everything we do, from how we extend resources to partners, to how those partners show up within their own communities. For example, we resource community energy navigators to walk neighbors through what will happen inside their homes during a retrofit, how it will improve their health, and what it will mean for their utility bills. This kind of relationship building is what makes electrification at scale possible in communities that have historically been promised programs that did not deliver. 

Mural Artists Kristen Lynn Zimmerman and Pua Bittick Haleamau

Mural from Affordability Session at Collectrify’s April 2026 Annual Convening

 led by Collectrify ally Elena Kreiger, Senior Director of Research & Policy with Just Solutions 

Advancing Despite the Headwinds 

Even within a landscape of significantly constrained resources and shifting policy, our frontline partners are finding ways to move forward, building infrastructure, training workers, and delivering community benefits—with more than 100 people moving through clean energy workforce programs tied to real-world implementation over the past year alone. They are leading confidently at the local level, just as they always have, with or without federal support.

Our partner People for Community Recovery (PCR), founded in 1979 in Chicago's Altgeld Gardens, one of the most environmentally burdened communities in the country, illustrates what community-led electrification can become. PCR's work links workforce development directly to community power by training residents as solar installers, energy efficiency workers, and healthy home assessors, while simultaneously asserting community authority over the clean energy investments happening in their neighborhood. Through our partnership, PCR is building toward a community-owned training center that would anchor this work locally for years to come.

And PCR is not alone. Partners across our national network are demonstrating innovative models for what equitable building electrification can look like in practice. Hope Village Revitalization in Detroit is innovating on implementation, upgrading single- and multi-family homes to become mostly electric, energy-efficient, solar-powered, and deeply affordable, with the goal of getting to community-scale implementation. Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition is advancing electrification as a narrative and cultural project through "Mama We Lit," a fellowship program that builds femme leadership, amplifies community voices through self-determined narratives, and deepens community understanding of electrification as a health and affordability win. 

These implementation models are matched by equally significant policy and infrastructure wins. Collectrify partners Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Self-Help Enterprises, and Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles—all members of the Building Energy, Equity, and Power Coalition—collaboratively informed the design of California’s $521M Equitable Building Decarbonization Program and are now advancing implementation efforts across the state for limited-wealth and environmental justice communities. And the Debt Collective works to ensure that building upgrades and energy improvements don't trigger displacement in renter-heavy communities through its Tenant Power Toolkit, which equips tenants to fight eviction, address housing debt, and build collective power.

Alongside these on-the-ground wins, Collectrify is investing in the longer-term narrative and culture shift needed to sustain and amplify this work. We Stay Ready, our new Narrative Strategy Lab, actively supports partners in elevating equitable building electrification, economic development, and people-centered housing into broader public and policy conversations. In a moment when these issues risk being sidelined, moving them into the cultural and political mainstream is itself a form of power building. The Lab drives this shift by providing spaces for information exchange, shared narrative development, and the kind of trust-based coordination that no federal clawback can undo overnight.

Our Invitation 

Collectrify exists as a bridge between philanthropy and the frontlines. Join our Learning Community Collaboratory. Meet our partners. Understand what they're building and what they know. Commit to staying in regular conversation, sharing strategies, and following frontline leadership even when the policy environment feels intractable. And if funding isn't possible right now, join us anyway.

The communities we work alongside don’t have the option to retreat. They are navigating compounding crises—energy unaffordability, housing instability, environmental health challenges, and the erosion of regulatory protections—while still showing up for their neighbors every day with joy and perseverance. That this is happening at the intersection of climate and democracy is not a coincidence. It is the design of this moment.

Philanthropy's solidarity with frontline work, right now, is not optional. It is essential.

We stay ready. We hope you'll join us.