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An Ounce of Prevention…

Monday, August 30th, 2010

It’s that time of year when we start watching the Weather Channel more frequently, and I start getting emergency weather updates on my Blackberry.  It’s hurricane season. We are thinking about this all the more as we observe the fifth anniversary of the horrible time called Hurricane Katrina.

Working with Home Depot for over a decade, I understand how a big storm impacts people, families and communities.  We are exceptionally proud of the things we do as a company and as a foundation in the wake of a storm when a community needs help.  This is also what gets the most media attention.  I hope, though, that we can start paying more attention to things that can happen before a hurricane, tornado, flood or fire damages a community or an entire region.  I know, it’s not nearly as exciting; the pictures aren’t nearly as good.  But what if we could actually avoid those “after” pictures.

I was exceptionally pleased last week to see that HUD has awarded $312 million to 13 states to reduce the damages from future disasters.  These funds will be used:

  • to buyout homeowners in high-risk areas and relocate them to safer places;
  • to complete improvements to homes to reduce damage by doing things like reinforcing windows and doors and raising the elevation;
  • to improve and enforce building codes; and
  • to develop thoughtful land use plans that reduce development in high-risk areas.

You may say that that’s a lot of money right now and ask it we can really afford it.  That’s a salient concern, but the answer is clearly that we can’t afford not to make these investments.  Every dollar spent on damage mitigation will result in a $4 reduction in the amount we would spend for disaster recovery.

You may also be asking why I’m writing - or even thinking - about this.  I know I typically focus on topics related to affordable housing and  “green” building.  But what could be more sustainable than to invest in building homes so they don’t get blown away by a strong wind or to build them in places where a flood won’t carry them away?  What could help a family with few housing choices more?  We know these storms are going to occur - whether every 10 years, every 30 years or every 100 years.  Isn’t it just common sense that we would think about how to reduce the damage caused by something that will inevitably happen?

I hope I’ve convinced you to think about what you can do before we start tracking the next satellite images of a storm (I know, there’s a storm tracking right now!).  While it’s on the top of your mind,  I’m  encourage you to do a couple of things.  First, think about donating to the American Red Cross before a specific emergency arises.  Every year we give to the Red Cross’s Annual Disaster Giving Program so they can do the things they need to do to be on the ground helping people immediately after a disaster.  They also have great resources to educate you and your family on how to be prepared.  Other fantastic resources are available at the site of our long-standing partner, the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, where they have everything from DIY home inspections, to a contractors’ certification program, to videos with step by step instructions on how to improve your home with disaster safety in mind.  Remember “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Environmental Responsibility, Healthy, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »

Making Cities Healthier - for People and the Economy

Friday, July 30th, 2010

I’ve just come from a two-day discussion among a group of a dozen experts from a cross section of fields related to sustainability - energy, transportation, water and economic development, to name a few.  We brought them together to select the recipients of The Home Depot Foundation Awards of Excellence for Sustainable Community Development.  That’s a lot of words strung together, but we were looking for cities - large and small - that are 1) thinking about sustainability in the broadest sense and what it means for their community,  2) creating a plan that sets out the ways they are committing to make their cities healthier over the long term from an economic development, public health, social equity and environmental stewardship standpoint and that defines the objective standards they will use to measure progress and 3) completing projects that help move them toward their goals.  After reviewing the applications, I can confidently say that cities across the country are undertaking some truly amazing sustainability efforts right now, despite the dire budget forecasts they are facing.  (I can’t tell you who we thought was doing the best work yet, but you can check out the videos of last year’s award recipients.)

I think what the conversation underscored for me is what Kermit said so many years ago, “It’s not easy being green.” It takes an enormous dedication of resources, time and expertise to bring the benefits of sustainability to our cities.  In fact, it requires that leaders, staff and citizens re-think everything they are doing from paving roads and building police stations to buying paper and installing streetlights.  Hard questions need to be asked about the true health of a community and the actual opportunities that are available to its residents.  This requires looking at, among other things,  the rates of energy and water use, accessibility of transportation options, affordability of quality housing, levels of pollution in the air and water, success of local businesses and prevalence of obesity and related diseases.  And not only do they need to investigate all of this, they also have to figure out what needs improvement and set goals, prioritize the list and come up with money to pay for it.  They then must measure what they’ve done and report back.  Whew!

After reading that last paragraph, you may be thinking that this is too much to ask of any local government.  It’s too hard; the economy is too bad; for now, they should just focus on getting through the next week, month, year.

But that’s my point, right?  It’s not just “for now.”  The choices that are being made today are determining what our tomorrows are going to look like across this broad spectrum of issues.  We are creating roads, light rail lines, buildings and parks that are going to be with us for decades.  To a large extent, through the decisions made today, we are determining what taxes our children will pay, what kinds of homes they will live in, what kind of jobs they will have and whether they will enjoy healthy lives.  After all, much of what we live with today is because of what our fathers (and mothers) did: encouraging sprawl, eliminating green space, buying energy gobbling cars and homes and dumping pollution into our rivers.

So hopefully, you can see that although it’s hard, this is important work that must be done.  I hope, though, that you can also be convinced to take it one step further to realize that this is a once-in-a-lifetime, exciting opportunity.  We have the chance to really make a difference and to improve the way cities operate and govern.  We can make cities run more efficiently, more productively and more sustainably.  We can transform them!

Cities, after all, have a lot of infrastructure and history and policies, but they are made up of, and created for, people.  By making cities run better, we are getting to the core of what we do as a foundation: we help people to achieve their dreams of success for their families and to live better lives.  sci_logo

To learn more about how you can take action to make your city more sustainable, visit www.SustainableCitiesInstitute.org.

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Environmental Responsibility, Sustainable Cities, Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »

Catalyzing Sustainable Actions

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Those of us who think about how to make our cities better places to live had a great week in Atlanta as we hosted the Congress for the New Urbanism’s Congress 18, which focused on the interconnectedness of our health and the places where we live.  We don’t think or talk about it much, but how we live depends in large measure on where we live.  CNU focuses on planning and developing communities for people, not just cars, and for all kinds of people doing different things.

mayberry_post_office_rfdEssentially, it’s a throwback to Mayberry R.F.D., a small town where the doctor lived next to the barber (or sheriff) and you could walk downtown to shop or get an ice cream cone.  There was a park to throw a ball or have a picnic (baseball and apple pie).  Now we talk about sustainability and new urbanism, mixed-use developments and TODs (transit oriented development).  We don’t say you can walk to town, we say that it’s pedestrian-friendly or walkable  - you get the gist.

We call it “new” because we are coming full circle after we sped and sprawled to the suburbs only to learn that the grass wasn’t necessarily greener five - or 25  - miles outside of town.  It began to take a lot of time and resources (both emotional and financial) to drive into work everyday, which left less time and money for relaxing, enjoying friends and families and exercise.  And instead of walking to the places we wanted to go, we had to drive to the strip mall, so we were always sitting behind a steering wheel or a desk rather than getting some exercise and fresh air.  Our waistbands seemed to hdf_atl_0596spread along with the roads.  Unless your own yard was big enough to play a game of football or baseball, you and your kids probably weren’t going to play because there’s not a park in your neighborhood, so you stay inside and play a video game version.  Come to think about it, with all those cars on the new road, the air wasn’t so fresh anyway.  As the farms and forests started to be developed and paved, the rain water had fewer places to run and floods started drowning places that weren’t in the flood plain.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that we want to create communities like we used to have.  With larger cities, we are thinking in terms of neighborhoods.  As energy costs continue to increase and clean water becomes more precious, conserving resources and cutting utility bills also become more important.  We understand that where we put the places we need to go, such as offices, homes, schools and hospitals, and whether we have choices about how we get there, whether by cars, trains, subways, bikes or walking, have an enormous impact on our lives.  These questions of land use, transportation, resource allocation and economic development are enormous issues, and they are issues that our cities control.  More and more cities are bringing sustainability, which in many situations means getting more while using less, into their planning processes, their operations and their ordinances and zoning.

sci_logoBut it’s not easy to think comprehensively about all of the aspects of a community that make it a place that you want to live and that is affordable.  We’ve talked to many city officials, professional planners and developers and neighborhood residents who say that it’s hard to find credible, practical, action-oriented materials to help them accomplish their goals for today without sacrificing the resources and budgets of the future.  That’s why The Home Depot Foundation is excited and proud to announce the creation of the Sustainable Cities Institute, which we have developed in partnership with Southface.  At the Institute’s website, we are providing vetted tools and information to jump start efforts to make cities’ operations and policies more sustainable.  People in so many places across the U.S. and Canada are making enormous strides in bringing the economic, health and environmental benefits of sustainability to their residents.  By sharing their efforts and successes, we intend to catalyze similar activity in other places across the country.  In the fall, we will announce two cities that will have been selected as pilot cities.  Over two years, we will invest $1 million in these locations to bring their sustainability plans to life through specific developments.  The progress, challenges and learnings from those cities will be chronicled on the SCI website.

Just as we know that anything worth doing takes time, we understand that creating places and lives that are sustainable takes years and the effort of many people.  While we have been able to launch SCI because of the dedicated work of dozens of people, we know that it will evolve over time.  We hope that you’ll contribute your thoughts and experience as a member of SCI and join us in this journey to make SCI a tool that can help shape our communities of the future.

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Environmental Responsibility, Sustainable Communities | 1 Comment »

Thanks MNN for Spreading the Word!

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

MNNlogoIf you haven’t found Mother Nature Network yet, you really need to check it out.  The site’s stated mission is to “Improve Your World,” using the term world in the broadest sense  - not just the planet, but your family, lifestyle business and community as well.  Under that umbrella the site covers a range of daily breaking news as well as a lot of great in-depth reporting on everything from sustainable business practices to healthy cooking.  I also love the photo essays.

While I enjoy the site every day, I’m thrilled today that MNN has posted a guest blog from me about the importance of green building for families living in modest homes.  I truly appreciate their help in getting out the message that responsible building protects pocketbooks, people and the planet.  I hope you’ll give it a read and let me know what you think.  If you agree, please help us spread the word too!

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Healthy, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »

Paying Volunteers say “Thank You New Orleans!”

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Be glad that you aren’t sitting next to me – I’m tired, sweaty and smelly… and I feel great. I just got back from a Habitat for Humanity site where we worked on 5 different houses. All told, dozens of people who work with The Home Depot’s marketing, advertising and online teams essentially built a house – albeit not all in one piece. We did different work at different houses: at the first, laying the cement block foundation; second, building the floor system; third, framing a three-bedroom, one-bath home; fourth, siding an entire home and starting to paint it; and finally, nailing shingles on the roof and completing some framing inside. WHEW!

foundation

While these days of working in a community - beside colleagues, neighbors and in this case, the future owner of the homes we were building - are always meaningful, I think all of us were particularly inspired because we are in New Orleans as the fifth anniversary of Katrina approaches. Even as we sweated to bring these new homes out of the sandy ground, across the street decrepit and abandoned homes seemed to be staring at us through glassless windows. No one having stepped foot in them since the storm blew through over four and a half years ago.

The point I want to underscore though is not where we are, or what we did, but who was there. The Habitat staff was organized, professional and easy to work with, and the future homeowners were quietly excited, but perhaps a little overwhelmed. There were quite a few people who work for The Home Depot, but the vast majority of the volunteers are employed by the companies The Home Depot has hired to help its marketing and advertising efforts. These are men and women to whom “building a deck” doesn’t involve hammering nails, but instead means creating a powerpoint presentation. And not only did they travel and give their day to help someone they didn’t know, they even made a financial donation to do it.

roofing

Now, I’ve worked for large corporations for my entire adult life (How long is that? Long enough!), and I understand that sometimes it’s hard to see that real, breathing human beings with emotions and compassion make the decisions for these organizations. But I wish you could have seen the companies working through these people today. From early this morning, my goal for the day was to make sure these paying volunteers had a good experience and knew that we appreciated the time and money they were giving. Instead, I spent the day being thanked by others for giving them an opportunity to help this community where they don’t live and to help families they will probably never see again. The statements were gratifying: they told me that they would remember this day for a very long time, that it was the best corporate event they had ever attended and that when they get home they were going to take their families to do something in their community. In fact the only “complaint” I heard was that they didn’t get the chance to work hard enough.

wallraising

As the media stories start to gear up this summer about the five years that have passed since Katrina struck and the progress, or lack of progress, that has been made, I know I’ll remember what I experienced today: a neighborhood with amazingly strong people trying to reclaim their homes and a gracious community allowing scores of strangers the opportunity to help others and to give of themselves.

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Sustainable Communities, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Practical Priorities - for Families and Cities

Monday, March 15th, 2010

I’m at the National League of Cities annual meeting in Washington. The President, Mayor Ron Loveridge from Riverside, CA, just announced our new partnership with NLC around sustainability. Together, we will be helping local leaders think about making their cities run more efficiently, and more economically, for the long term.  (To see more of the resources we’re providing cities, see our Sustainable Cities Institute website.)

Attending the conference are about 1,000 city leaders – mayors, aldermen, council members and staff – who have gathered to talk about the issues they are facing. Unfortunately, the list of issues is long and seems to grow every day. And finding solutions is particularly difficult given the budget situations cities are facing now and will continue to face for at least several more years.

Because they have so many problems that need to be addressed, it’s interesting to see what these leaders have picked to be on their focused agenda. Their four primary issues are 1) job creation, 2) strengthening and stabilizing the housing market, 3) investing in transportation infrastructure, and 4) energy efficiency and conservation. Now I know that list covers a lot of complicated ground, but those are the ones the local leaders are talking about. I found this list of particular interest because it aligns so closely with the Foundation’s focus on creating healthy affordable homes as the cornerstone of sustainable communities.  In fact, our stated vision is for all families:

  • to have healthy, efficient homes they can afford over the long-term;
  • to have access to safe, vibrant parks and greenspaces; and
  • to receive the economic, social and environmental benefits of living in a sustainable community.

I guess the similarities could be by coincidence or from lack of creativity or imagination on the part of each of our organizations. I think, and hope, that instead it’s because we each understand that these are long-term issues facing families, neighborhoods and governments across the country that need to be addressed now. And while we urgently need to find solutions, we must also think about whether these solutions will continue to work over time and whether they will cause more or different problems in the future. That is, the solutions need to be sustainable – in the broadest sense of the word. Here’s what I mean:

First and foremost, the issues are economic. We have to return our families to financial stability, which will allow our communities and governments to become stable again as well. Employment (or more accurately, unemployment) and the housing market are inextricably linked: if you don’t have a job, you can’t pay the rent or mortgage; if you don’t have a stable place to live, you aren’t going to be able to hold down a job. If you lose your job or your home, there’s a pretty good chance it’s just a matter of time before you lose the other. And we’ve sadly seen what happens to cities when their property tax and sales tax collections start decreasing as families struggle.

Second, a home has to be affordable not just to move into, but to live in as well. Once you pay the rent or mortgage, you have to have enough money left to pay the utilities as well. At this point, energy efficiency should be a given for all new homes, and everyone should be doing the best he or she can to save energy no matter how efficient or inefficient their home may be – even if that just means turning out the lights when you leave a room. The same is true for cities: they should be making their buildings operate as efficiently as possible. Otherwise, you’re just throwing money out the window or flushing it down the toilet or leaving money on the table or whatever metaphor you want to use.

Finally, place matters: the location of your home and the options you have for getting there determines where you can work and what you can do outside of work. Transportation costs have to be a factor in calculating whether a family is going to be able to live in a home. Putting environmental considerations aside, commutes that eat up a family’s budget and time aren’t smart, and they aren’t sustainable. That’s why we encourage the development of homes that are within walking distance of places where people want to be or close to mass transit and are in areas with safe, green places to relax and play.

I hope that if you look at it like that, the National League of Cities and The Home Depot Foundation don’t share the same priorities because sustainability is the hot topic of the moment or because we just happened upon them. Instead, I hope you agree that we’ve made these issues our priority because they are important and practical and they make sense for today and for the long haul.

If you’d like to learn more about The Home Depot Foundation and our initiatives to support healthy, affordable housing in sustainable communities, please visit our website.)

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »

Housing, Service and the Environment: The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I often speak to groups at conferences, and the topic varies, of course,  depending on the interest of the group - affordable housing, green building, urban forestry, volunteerism.  Lately, as I’ve prepared for these presentations the same theme always seems appropriate:  If you had considered it two years ago - or 20 years ago for that matter - would you have ever dreamed we would find ourselves in a time when the issues of 1) housing and community development, 2) volunteer service and 3) sustainability would be garnering significant attention in the nation’s conversation?  I can honestly say that I would not have bet one thin dime that this possibility would be our reality.

While it’s astounding that we are talking about these three issues at all, it’s even more surprising that we are seriously discussing how interconnected they are.  Solutions to the enormous problems we are currently grappling with will come more easily by combining the resources that are available under each of these umbrellas.  Here’s what I mean:  We have a housing crisis because we weren’t buying homes that we could afford to live in over the long term.  If we think beyond the initial expenses of getting into a house to consider how much it actually costs to live there (heating and cooling it, running the appliances, getting to work, keeping up the place, etc.), issues related to environmental sustainability immediately arise, such as energy and water conservation; public transportation and commute alternatives; using less and recycling more; and trees and gardening.  And if volunteer service is an essential component of the plan to survive and recover from the current economic crisis, we should bring the benefits of thinking green to our projects.  In fact, the President’s United We Serve initiative just announced that it’s going green.

As we see Washington putting the policy discussions into action with legislation like the Kennedy Serve America Act, the Recovery Act, with its focus on energy efficiency, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, I can’t help but hope that the results live up to the possibilities for solving the problems facing our cities and the families living in them.  Each of us has the opportunity to use these new resources to do more, but if we intertwine our efforts in housing, volunteerism and the environment, we can grow the positive effects in our communities exponentially, both immediately and into the future.  Let’s hope we don’t waste this moment we’ve all been waiting for.

By Kelly Caffarelli
Posted in Environmental Responsibility, Healthy, Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities | Leave a Comment »