{"id":1592,"date":"2007-03-04T23:51:22","date_gmt":"2007-03-05T03:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:48:40","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:48:40","slug":"broke-and-have-electric-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/03\/04\/broke-and-have-electric-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"Broke and have electric heat?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/53\/167627640_4b09549d57.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It has always bugged me that energy conservation programs are almost exclusively targeted at the relatively well-to-do, who need the help the least. Well, for 270 lucky low-income Toronto households, that is about to change. And with a little effort, we could be fixing up all of the poorly insulated, low-income homes in the city as part of Toronto&#8217;s climate change plan in order to cut back on both greenhouse gases and the energy bills of those least able to afford to heat the great outdoors.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who&#8217;s tried to run an environmental program knows that the coveted &#8216;early adopters&#8217; (those who are cheapest and easiest to reach) tend to be mostly white, university-educated, middle- to upper-income, and native English speakers. This is, of course, the same group that is mostly likely to vote, and hence foremost in the minds of politicians. But it&#8217;s not who&#8217;s most in need of help, or where you get the biggest greenhouse gas savings.<\/p>\n<p>Programs like the old federal Energuide for Houses program give middle-class home owners a rebate for making their homes more energy efficient. When the Harper government canned the program last year, they soon discovered that it was much-loved and have resurrected it with a new name.<\/p>\n<p>Lost in the fuss was the cancellation of the brand new, $500 million Energuide for Low-Income Homes, which had been won by groups like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gca.ca\">Green Communities Canada<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lowincomeenergy.ca\/\">Low-Income Energy Network<\/a> as part of the Layton-Martin budget deal in the last minority Parliament and would have reached the (usually older and poorly maintained) houses and apartment buildings that really need it.<\/p>\n<p>That bit of federal environmental backsliding should be neither forgotten nor forgiven, but picking up some of the slack is a new pilot program from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powerauthority.on.ca\/Page.asp?PageID=122&amp;ContentID=4900\">Ontario Power Authority<\/a>. It is free and open to both renters and owners, although you have to be paying your electricity bill and you should have electric heat. I should confess that the OPA did ask me for my thoughts on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conservationbureau.on.ca\/Page.asp?PageID=122&amp;ContentID=1638&amp;SiteNodeID=168&amp;BL_ExpandID=145\">how to do this<\/a>, and my only complaint is that they should go faster and get the gas and oil companies involved as well.<\/p>\n<p>The non-profit group Green$aver will be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greensaver.org\/audit_eeaph.html\">delivering it in Toronto<\/a>. One of their principal challenges will be connecting with low-income households so if you think you&#8217;re eligible or work with people who are, give them a call at 416-203-3106.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hoping it&#8217;ll be oversubscribed in no time, and then we can bang down the doors to make it a key part of Canada&#8217;s (and Toronto&#8217;s) climate plans.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/aidanfotos.com\">Bouke Salverda<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has always bugged me that energy conservation programs are almost exclusively targeted at the relatively well-to-do, who need the help the least. Well, for 270 lucky low-income Toronto households, that is about to change. And with a little effort, we could be fixing up all of the poorly insulated, low-income homes in the city<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/03\/04\/broke-and-have-electric-heat\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Broke and have electric heat?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,33],"tags":[4799,457,4797,4794,4793,23,4796,4792,3184,4795,4798,19,391],"class_list":["post-1592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-space","category-housing","tag-416-203-3106","tag-canada","tag-electricity-bill","tag-energy-bills","tag-energy-conservation-programs","tag-environment","tag-gas-and-oil","tag-greenhouse-gas-savings","tag-harper-government","tag-homes-more-energy","tag-ontario-power-authority","tag-toronto","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Broke and have electric heat? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/03\/04\/broke-and-have-electric-heat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Broke and have electric heat? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It has always bugged me that energy conservation programs are almost exclusively targeted at the relatively well-to-do, who need the help the least. 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