Green Affordable Housing Coalition

The Green Affordable Housing Coalition is a Bay area coalition committed to incorporating green building practices into the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of housing projects. The coalition works with Bay area cities, counties, and private-sector and nonprofit service providers to help them adopt and promote sustainable construction practices for affordable housing. The Green Affordable Housing Coalition uses a combination of education and outreach to promote green buildings in the community. The coalition promotes buildings that are integrated to the site and region; use energy, water and material wisely; minimize and recycle construction waste; create their own energy; are durable and easily maintained; promote good health for both construction workers and residents; and enhance housing affordability. The coalition is working on establishing an organizational structure that facilitates communication and coordination between public and private sector affordable housing stakeholders and developing program tools to help local governments and housing developers improve the quality of affordable housing.

The goal of the Green Affordable Housing Coalition is to produce economic and quality of life benefits for tenants and generate economic and environmental benefits by incorporating green building practices in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of affordable housing.

Recently, the coalition has published sixteen fact sheets, addressing a variety of green building issues from solar financing to passive solar design. In addition, the coalition has published three new case studies. Each case study highlights an affordable housing project designed and built to incorporate green building practices.