What We Do: Policy as a Vehicle for Community Development

At the BLR Center, we believe that innovative policy is the foundation of flourishing communities. We focus on using federal, state, and local policy to address systemic barriers and catalyze transformative development. Our current priorities—clean energy and lead abatement—are not just environmental imperatives, but vehicles for economic development, job creation, and improved quality of life in underserved neighborhoods.

Current Focus: Clean Energy and Lead Abatement in Underserved Communities

Our work leverages public-private partnerships to build the market through clean energy, financial services, and lead abatement policy. Our work begins with a commitment to the most pressing needs of low-income areas, where policy can be harnessed to deliver tangible benefits. Through strategic partnerships and evidence-based approaches, we are advancing clean energy solutions and comprehensive lead abatement strategies, beginning with Englewood, Chicago—a community with rich history, resilient spirit, and untapped potential.

The Englewood Net-Zero Integrated Planning Initiative

Project Overview

The Englewood Net-Zero Initiative is a groundbreaking effort to transform Englewood into a model net-zero community, integrating clean energy upgrades, energy efficiency, lead abatement, and targeted financial services strategies to build the market to support genuine community and economic growth. Our approach brings together policy innovation, community leadership, and multi-sector investment to create lasting impact. The work includes the retrofitting and rehab of the existing multifamily and single-family housing stock, and the development of new single-family construction, with a planned deliverable of 160 shovel-ready net-zero single-family projects immediately following an initial 18-month planning and market-building period. Lead abatement strategies are integrated into all retrofit and rehab efforts. The Initiative also includes commercial retrofits and rehabs in addition to strategies to incentivize new net-zero commercial development. All efforts are directly tied to workforce development strategies, ensuring that Englewood residents are part of training and placement opportunities connected to retrofit, rehab, new development, and lead abatement activities.

Community Collaboration First

The Initiative is a collaboration with the community and will be guided by existing community and city-approved strategies for Englewood revitalization, within the frame of a Community Benefits Plan.

Why the BLR Center

Englewood Net-Zero is anchored by the visionary leadership of former Congressman Bobby L. Rush, former Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy, of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. Building on an eight-year community development demonstration project Congressman Rush founded in Englewood, Englewood Net-Zero advances market-driven wealth-building strategies in underserved neighborhoods, with a deliberate focus on preventing displacement. The earlier demonstration project produced several landmark achievements: a U.S. Department of Labor workforce training and placement program now replicated nationally; the construction of six new single-family homes through innovative capital structures—including the pioneering use of Section 8 vouchers for mortgage payments; the establishment and funding of a community health center; and comprehensive homeownership readiness education.

Vincent Barnes, the previous Executive Director of the earlier demonstration project and now CEO of the Clean Energy Policy Strategies Consortium, has joined with the BLR Center to drive clean energy and lead abatement policy in Englewood. During Congressman Rush’s tenure on the House Energy Subcommittee, Barnes substantively contributed to the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, while leading policy development for a nationally based energy efficiency policy group in Washington, D.C. Barnes’s work included a specific focus on clean energy and energy efficiency investments in low-income communities. Notably, Barnes led the effort to allocate 40% of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to disadvantaged populations.

Catalyzing Vision and Impact

Englewood Net-Zero integrates decades of expertise in community development, energy policy, and financial services, to address the urgent need for sustainable economic growth in Englewood. The model offers a compelling blueprint for those seeking to catalyze transformative change while advancing equity in low-income and historically marginalized communities..