Rosita grew up in Chicago, surrounded by family members who lived on her block. Today, she and her daughter live in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood in a brick “two-flat”, a local term for a two-story building with one apartment unit on each floor. Rosita purchased her home 28 years ago. Built in 1902, her home has a finished basement as well as a yard. In the 28 years that Rosita has lived in her neighborhood, she has seen it go through quite a few changes. This type of displacement that Rosita has witnessed is also known as gentrification. Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood, typically through an influx of higher-income residents, businesses, and real estate investment. Neighborhoods that experience gentrification are often occupied by residents of color, and these are the people forced to leave the neighborhood when the cost of living becomes unaffordable. Rosita has been able to keep her home even as her neighborhood gentrifies. In fact, she is just two short years away from fully paying off her mortgage. This is a huge accomplishment considering only about a third of U.S. homes are fully paid off.  

Gladys is a homeowner living in the Hermosa neighborhood of Chicago. She lives in a frame construction style house that was built in 1907 with her daughter, who now has three children of her own. Since she’s retired, Gladys’s fixed income from her social security and pension has to cover all her costs. When costs like Medicare go up, it greatly impacts people like Gladys. From 2021 to 2022, Medicare premiums went up a whopping 14.5%, which is one of the largest increases in the history of the program.  In addition to rising prices, unexpected events can also be costly – especially when it comes to home maintenance. Beyond the unexpected maintenance costs following a fire or a flood, people living in older homes like Gladys’s often see much higher utility bills than newer homes. In fact, homes that were built before 1950 and use natural gas spend an average of 27% more on space heating than those built after 1980. And for most people, like Gladys, a natural gas bill is not their only utility bill.  

Honnie is a Senior Energy Engineer for Elevate, a nonprofit that increases access to clean and affordable heat, power, and water for communities that have historically been under-invested in. Honnie works on a program that helps homeowners “electrify” their homes – meaning remove old fossil fuel appliances and replace them with efficient, electric appliances to save energy. In addition to conducting home energy assessments and helping people enroll in these programs, Honnie works hard to help people understand how they use energy at home.  

Rhonda is from Chicago and grew up in Englewood. She has three children, now adults, and has lived in her home in Auburn Gresham for 21 years. Rhonda is a home daycare provider. Rhonda has been incredibly resourceful in managing her home over the twenty years she’s lived in it. She was proactive when she first moved into her home by working with Community and Economic Development Association (CEDA), to get a home assessment and install insulation. On average, households can save up to 15% on heating and cooling costs by insulating their house and sealing gaps and cracks where air comes in. Because she operates a daycare out of her home, Rhonda pays special attention to the mandates and programs that keep her house safe for the children she cares for. In addition to insulation and other upgrades that made her home energy efficient, healthy, and safe for children, Rhonda has renovated her house over time to really make it her own. 

Yesenia was born and raised in Chicago. She is a licensed home daycare provider and has raised four children of her own. She has been living in her home in Chicago Lawn since 2006.  Yesenia’s home is commonly known in Chicago as a workers cottage. Built between the 1870’s and 1910’s, this style of house is one of the more affordable types of homes in Chicago. However, because workers cottages are some of the oldest homes in the city, they can be challenging to maintain. Trying to heat or cool an older home with its original systems can use a lot of energy. Yesenia experienced this in her home and was resourceful in creating strategies to help stay comfortable and keep her bills low. Despite her best efforts, Yesenia’s older home still caused her to have outrageously high gas bills. 

Cheryl is a home daycare provider living and working in the North Austin neighborhood of Chicago. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama and moved to Chicago when she was 19 years old. Cheryl’s home is a Chicago bungalow that was built in 1916. This type of brick construction home was incredibly popular in the early 20^th century, providing homes to Chicago residents across the whole city. Like the bungalows, there are many other types of single-family homes in Chicago that are nearly a hundred years old and are rich in architectural history. In fact, about 49% of all single-family units in the city were built before 1940. These older homes were made to last—today they make up an important part of the affordable housing stock and are great options for first time homeowners. However, as buildings age they can be difficult to maintain, especially if the house still has some of its original features.   

Energy insecurity affects over 33 million households, or 27% of all homes in the U.S. When a household is energy insecure, it means they face challenges to meet basic energy needs, such as paying their utility bills or keeping the temperature in their home comfortable during the summer and winter months. Energy security is closely linked to housing security, so to understand energy challenges we must also take a deeper look at housing challenges, both past and present. For decades in the U.S., Black Americans were deliberately restricted from investing in housing due to discriminatory practices called “redlining.” Part of redlining included policies that allowed banks to deny mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to families based on their race or ethnicity. These practices affected generations of families that were not able to own or invest in their homes. Ruth Wells, a Black woman born in Mississippi and raised in Indiana, came to Chicago in 1949 to make a life for herself. Redlining was eventually outlawed, but its effects are still very much seen today. Previously “redlined” neighborhoods that were denied investment remain underinvested in today. This has led to lower-quality housing that uses more energy, costs more to maintain, and has more health hazards. In fact, researchers have compared the maps of formerly redlined urban areas across the country and found higher rates of poverty, chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes, and even shorter life spans — sometimes as much as 20 to 30 years less than residents of other neighborhoods in the same city. These under resourced communities are still typically populated by Black, Latino, and Native American families.