Shout-out to City of Milwaukee's Environmental Collaboration Office (ECO) for creating a new video promoting the benefits of getting an energy assessment of your home, featuring both green homeowner Steve & Ann O'Connell as well as Green Homeowners United's Kevin Kane! Check it out here:

To learn more about the different kind of Energy & Carbon Assessments we offer, and to sign up for one on your property, click here:

Press Release,Monday October 25th, 2021 

Contacts: Kevin Kane (414) 550-8280, [email protected]

Release: With New Funds Available, Milwaukee Residents Upgrading Homes To Be Energy Efficient & Creating Green Union Jobs

This “Energy Awareness Month”, City of Milwaukee’s updated Me2 program available now to residents to help cover the cost to upgrade homes before December 31st.

Milwaukee: Surrounded by homeowners from the Sherman Park neighborhood, Green Homeowners United - an energy efficiency and economic modeling firm - together with State Representative Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee), Sherman Park Community Association, Milwaukee Area Labor Council, Laborers Local 113, and Coalition of Lead Emergency debuted a new push to encourage residents to sign up to have their homes upgraded, thanks to funds available to help make homes more efficient, safer, and with the help of union workers. Up to $3,000 is available per home for insulation, reducing drafts and new HVAC, before 12/31.

Said Kevin Kane, chief economist for Green Homeowners United: “Upgrading homes to be energy efficient is one of the most important ways to cut carbon emissions. Even more than making every car electric. We should be shouting from the rooftops because every home is also a chance to improve comfort, reduce utility bills, increase home values and create good, living wage union jobs.”

City of Milwaukee has three programs to help residents afford to upgrade their home’s heating system and insulation (Me2), more easily purchase a “green home” (Milwaukee Home Down Payment Assistance) and soon will be putting millions into lead abatement & energy efficiency upgrades to homes. 

1. Me2 Milwaukee Energy Efficiency

2. Milwaukee Down Payment Assistance

3. Lead Abatement and Energy Efficiency 

Green Homeowners United is proud to officially announce that we are now a social enterprise union contractor! Our workers are now members of Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA) local 113 in Milwaukee! This fits into our long commitment to creating high-skilled living wage jobs, ideally for people of color to upgrade residential buildings to combat climate change.

Green Homeowners United is proud to work with the union movement and environmental movement to advance the cause of upgrading buildings to be energy efficient, renewable-energy sourced and eventually fully electrified. We fully believe that if one of the biggest opportunity to reduce carbon emissions is in residential energy efficiency (plus renewable energy and electrification) then it is not possible to take on the climate crisis without the experience, efforts and support of the Building Trades! Laborers, Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, HVAC Techs, Glaziers/Window Installers, Solar-Installers, and more will ALL be needed to make buildings (especially homes) more energy efficient.

We welcome the chance to work with you to create union jobs, fight climate change, and reduce utility bills in homes across Wisconsin.

We are proud to announce that Green Homeowners United is now officially a carbon neutral social enterprise!

Our office relies on solar panels, is super-insulated, relies on high-efficiency water equipment, Energy-Star low-E argon-filled windows, and high-efficiency furnace. And our remaining carbon impacts are offset thanks to the work of the Carbon Fund.

But we're not resting there! Our goal at Green Homeowners United is to constantly cut carbon emissions by making it easy and affordable for homeowners and homebuyers to make their homes more energy efficient. Through our energy assessments, economic analysis, help navigating fair green financing options, and direct construction work in homes, we help guide all those that want to do right by the planet and their pocketbook!

Green Homeowners United is not just a company, we are a social enterprise dedicated to helping people fight climate change at home, with green home-owning members and supporters across the state! We reinvest our profits back into helping more homes and creating jobs directly cutting emissions in houses across Wisconsin.

This article first appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on May 23rd, 2021. We share it for its coverage of Green Homeowners United, as well as the green homeowners who have joined us around South Central Wisconsin. To Learn more about if we can help you become a green homeowner, click here.

With low interest rates, financing offers are means to cut costs, carbon footprint

Chris Hubbuch | Wisconsin State Journal

For Immediate Release -- April 22, 202021

Contacts: Kevin Kane (414) 550-8280, [email protected]

Report: 197,000 Homeowners Still Eligible to Refinance in Wisconsin, Green Mortgages Available

New report shows over 190,000 Wisconsinites still eligible to refinance their homes during this period of low interest rates, and major opportunity to cut carbon emissions through “green” refinances.

STATEWIDE:  At a Zoom media event today elected officials, energy experts, and homeowners released a new Green Homeowners United report showing that thousands of homeowning Wisconsinites are still eligible to refinance their home’s mortgage. This research is timely, as new green mortgage options combined with this period of low interest rates could make a huge step toward President Biden’s goal of 2 million energy efficient homes.

This research represents the best available data on the numbers of Wisconsinites who could still benefit from reductions in their home’s mortgage interest rate, and where in the state they are likely to be found. Currently, Wisconsin is experiencing a major home refinance boom, but thousands more haven’t yet joined in.

Green mortgages work by adding thousands of dollars per home to a purchase or a refinance that can be spent on energy efficiency improvements that reduce utility bills. Upgrades such as solar panels, high efficiency plumbing, heating system improvements, reducing cold air infiltration and adding insulation. Improvements that save money and cut carbon emissions. Currently numerous banks such as Associated Bank, One Community Bank and Merchant's Bank offer green mortgages, and all banks and credit unions are able to.

This article first appeared in the March issue of the Shepherd Express's Issue of the Month

Taking on Climate Change at Home

By Kevin Kane, March 4, 2021

Climate change. While stopping it may seem like a gigantic task, the place to start may actually be close to home.  

President Biden believes so. His administration’s climate strategy features residential energy efficiency prominently, both in upgrading 2 million homes to be energy efficient and building 1.5 million new homes to a higher standard. 

This challenge builds off research highlighting residential energy efficiency as one of the top steps our society must do to reduce emissions. The National Resource Defense Council calls it the number 1 carbon reduction opportunity. And of course, it creates jobs. While a real climate commitment is promising for what we consider green jobs in solar, wind and electric vehicles, it also means we will need the construction trades: insulators, HVAC techs, plumbers, electricians and glaziers to seriously cut building emissions. 

Green Mortgages?

But what if we could make other jobs connected to the housing sector green also? What if realtors, appraisers, and mortgage lenders could have a critical role in reducing carbon emissions and energy bills for their clients? 

Community coalition works with bank to ensure investment into low income communities, green mortgages to support solar & energy improvements

Milwaukee - Green Homeowners United, a residential green construction and energy auditing firm, is proud to stand with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council, YWCA Southeastern Wisconsin and all other organizations working to ensure a fair lending agreement with First Citizens Bank as part of their merger with CIT Bank. This $16 billion over 5 years community benefit agreement will ensure equitable lending terms for low & moderate income residents, and joins the bank in offering "green mortgages" to help reduce carbon emissions.

First Citizens Bank has branches in 19 states, and 22 branches in Wisconsin. 

Elements of the agreement include:

• $3.2 billion in new residential lending to Black, Latino, Asian and Low/Moderate income homebuyers and refinancers.
• $5.9 billion in small business lending to under-served communities.
• Introduction of green mortgages to include energy efficiency improvements to homes during purchase or refinance.