Sierra Club, February 21, 2021, From Redlining to Restorative Justice
When we talk about clean energy and affordable housing in America, what often gets left out of the conversation are the ways in which energy insecurity and racist housing practices intersect.
Just look at predominantly Black neighborhoods throughout the country, such as Detroit, Michigan, and Columbia, South Carolina. The median energy burden of Black households in Detroit is 54 percent higher than that of non-Hispanic white households. Black families who face high energy burdens have to make tradeoffs between utility payments and other necessities, and now that burden has made those same families more susceptible to the life-threatening impacts of COVID-19.
