Turning Blight to Affordable Housing

What is happening? RCF Connects, a nonprofit in Richmond California, is snapping up blighted properties and rebuilding them as all electric homes with solar panels and backup storage.

Why is this important? When completed, the homes will be offered to first-time home ownership among the city’s Black and brown residents. The program is funded in part by a grant from the California Energy Commission.

How will this be important? In exchange for the affordable first time home, the home buyer will “enjoy low energy bills and access to electricity during an outage — they’ll also be helping to relieve California’s congested power grid, and even be able to make money doing it. That’s because the house will be part of a new “virtual power plant”.”

Route Fifty | The Plan to Turn Blighted Houses into a New Source of Green Power for the Grid