CITYWIDE — FAITH COMMUNITY LEADERS will have the opportunity to fortify their houses of worship against extreme weather as part of a climate-ready audit program offered by New York Disaster Interfaith Services.
NYDIS is partnering with Green City Force to offer a program that provides free, confidential climate-ready audits and retrofit grants to houses of worship that are within the city’s Environmental Justice Neighborhoods.
The audit program, which has support from Con Edison’s Climate Justice Community Resilience Initiative, includes several components: reducing energy use and costs, assessing drainage, improving climate control, evaluating and estimating the backup power needed for outages, and crisis planning. A $1,500 Retrofit Grant will include recommendations for low-cost improvements to increase the resilience of the house of worship.
There are several eligibility requirements, including whether the house of worship is in an Environmental Justice area. A congregational leader familiar with building operations must also participate in the audit walk-through. Congregations must also submit a retrofit plan, committing to sharing their learnings, in order to receive the $1,500 grant. Apply online through NYDIS’s website.
Environmental Justice areas in New York City are the focus of a report, released during former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, that define and identify geographical areas that experience ongoing and disproportionate negative impacts, such as environmental pollution, water contamination, flooding and food insecurity. The report includes a map showing several such waterfront neighborhoods near Red Hook and in northern and southern Brooklyn.
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