PRESS RELEASE
May 9, 2025
The Honorable Gary Peters
United States Senate
724 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
RE: Kalamazoo’s $18.9M EPA Community Change Grant for Holistic Healthy Homes
Holistic Healthy Homes: KCCC’s vision for a thriving Kalamazoo future.
The Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition (KCCC) has prepared to launch the Holistic Healthy Homes (HHH) initiative – a bold plan to make our vision real: Neighborhoods where every home is warm in the winter, cool in the summer and powered by clean energy. A place where families don’t have to choose between fixing a failing furnace and putting food on the table, where job training leads directly to meaningful careers in renewable energy, and local neighborhood centers become safe havens during power outages and extreme weather.
It’s not just a vision … we’ve already started!
Building the foundation for this work started in Kalamazoo in late 2024 when we were awarded a 3-year, federally funded $18.9 million EPA Community Change Grant (CCG) authorized by Congress. We have project plans with timelines, secured commitments from community partners, identified potential homeowner participants, and a team at-the-ready to implement the contracted deliverables.
A strategic investment in our community.
Specifically, $12.1 million was allocated to support local contractors, tradespeople and suppliers directly fueling economic growth. An additional $2.2 million was dedicated to launching a workforce development program aimed at training 150 new skilled laborers over the next three years. These are high-demand, good paying jobs – carpenters, electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers – roles currently in short supply in our region and essential to Michigan’s infrastructure and economic future. Approximately $1.6 million is targeted for neighborhood energy efficiency upgrades and independence measures (e.g. solar panels, battery storage and generators) to provide residents a safe place to go during power outages and dangerous weather.
Restoring homes. Empowering communities.
The project name - Holistic Healthy Homes (HHH) - conveys the heart of this effort: a deep understanding that climate solutions must put the needs of those most impacted first. Through the HHH framework, over 300 homes in historically underserved areas in Kalamazoo will receive vital repairs and energy upgrades to cultivate safer, healthier environments forging a path toward resilience and adaptation.
Every upgrade made today helps turn a house into a legacy of stability and opportunity resulting in increased property values and making long-term financial security possible for Kalamazoo residents. Every upgrade made today helps reduce energy bills and improves indoor air quality. Every upgrade made today is a safer place in which to live. Every energy efficiency measure gets us closer to driving real, impactful emissions reductions projected to prevent 684 metric tons of atmospheric CO2.
To be clear, this grant was never just about repairing homes or environmental resilience. It’s about investing in people, creating career pathways, and strengthening our local labor force – all issues that business owners, trade associations and economic leaders have rallied around.
We are being held back.
On May 2, we were notified that grant funding had been terminated. In the preceding 5 months, progress in implementing our 3-year Community Change Grant was slowed due to multiple, unexpected interruptions including intermittent “freezing” of access to funds with no notice and threats of termination for reasons not included in the Terms and Conditions of our contracts. Withholding of federally obligated funds made it difficult to hire staff and pay existing staff, contractors and other invoices, and issue RFPs for contractors.
KCCC and community partners invested significant time and resources in committing and preparing to implement this grant. And now, given the termination, months of planning, mobilization, and community partnership engagement have been wasted.
A final thought.
We appreciate the opportunity to call out the ways our organization, grant partners and the community at large have been negatively affected by months’ long chaos and the recent termination. Thank you.
We have focused here mostly on the tangible impacts. We want to close, though, by lifting up the most egregious consequence of this now 5-month old, unlawful and, frankly, cruel situation:
Historically marginalized communities that have endured generations of racial segregation and environmental injustices are now, once again, being denied critical resources to ensure a livable future by those in power.
Release the funds. Let us get to work.
Sincerely,
Jenny J. Doezema,
Executive Director
Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition
(269) 352-1213
cc:
Sheril Kirshenbaum (sheril_kirshenbaum@peters.senate.gov)
Daniel Labonte (daniel_labonte@hsgac.senate.gov