The Healthy Homes Grant Program
A 2024 legislative win
Healthy Homes lower the cost of living and increases comfort
Solving Oregon’s housing crisis is about more than building new housing, it’s also about keeping low-income families from losing their homes. When everyone in our community has a healthy home with affordable utility bills, it will contribute to greater housing security for our most vulnerable Oregonians.
Healthy Homes is an Oregon grant program that goes directly to household-serving organizations that do essential home repairs and improvements across the state. Its goal is to keep low-income families healthy, reduce medical costs and energy bills.
While initial funding for the program was a good start, it wasn’t enough due to so much need across the state. In 2024, we advocated for a legislative investment of $15 million and won.
How does the Healthy Homes Grant Program help Oregonians?
It helps keep seniors, low-income, and frontline families in their homes.
An old home with no insulation or broken windows lets in freezing winter air or scorching summer heat. Even the most expensive, polluting oil furnace can’t keep a family warm if they can’t afford to turn it on.
The Healthy Homes program pays for repairs and replacements with high efficiency equipment and resilience improvements to make people comfortable and lower their cost of living.
About half of Oregonians live in housing built before 1980. This housing is energy inefficient and in need of repairs. Frontline communities are highest at risk, which includes Black, Indigenous, and people of color, low-income families, people with disabilities, and people in rural areas.
Healthy Homes funding helps Oregonians:
Spend less money on heating and cooling
Have refuge from bad outdoor air such as wildfire smoke
Experience fewer sick days and emergency room visits (for example, from mold or lead exposure)
Live in more disaster-resilient homes
Create good, local jobs in home retrofitting
Federal, state, and utility programs cover some home repairs, but not everything. For example, if a house has a mold problem, installing a heat pump alone won’t make it safe. Without money for mold cleanup, a contractor or community group might not be allowed to do the work. The Healthy Homes Grant Program fills in funding gaps so more low-income Oregonians can access life-saving heat pumps.
Healthy Homes fills in funding gaps.
What essential home repairs and renovations does it fund?
Increased energy efficiency for lower utility bills and better comfort
Radon, lead, allergens, and mold abatement
Wildfire and air pollution filtration & air purification systems
Structural improvements and repairs for accessibility
Hardening against wildfire
Earthquake resistance
For a complete list of covered essential home repairs and renovations, Oregon Health Authority’s Healthy Homes Grant Program website.
Healthy Homes was supported by people and groups across Oregon:
Included in the Fair Shot for All People’s Budget.
An Oregon Just Transition Alliance priority.
An Oregon Conservation Network (OCN) priority.
The Healthy Homes program was set up by bipartisan HB 2842 in 2021.
