The South Bay Cities Council of Governments (SBCCOG) has been tasked with partnering with Renovate America and YGrene, PACE loan providers, to promote the loans to South Bay residents via their sister company South Bay Environmental Services Center (SBESC) .
On SBESC’s monthly Steering Committee report, they track the amount of eligible homes against the total funding and the number of jobs created in each city. It’s remarkable to note that the city’s with the highest concentration of minorities have the most loans on record.
Despite the negative publicity surrounding Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Loans it appears the program is continuing to thrive in the South Bay, particularly in the cities of Carson and Inglewood.
The report also includes a status on their contract deliverables for West Basin Municipal Water District. A recent letter to this blog details wasteful spending by the agency and based on SBESC’s report, they are getting paid to do little to nothing.
Related: Letter to the Editor: Is the West Basin Water Board Directors Self Promoting on the Taxpayers Dime
PACE loans are awarded to homeowners with significant amounts of equity who enter into energy-efficient loans to finance energy upgrades to their homes. This would include installation of solar panels, weather-stripping and whatever else the contractor can tack on.
2UrbanGirls reported on lawsuits filed by LA County homeowners who said the loan providers are preying on the elderly, when promoting PACE loans described as “subprime” and subsequent federal investigations as to whether the companies are deceiving investors by masking homeowners possible default of the loan.
Related: Renovate America (HERO) Pace Loans faces legal hurdles on ALL fronts
The only mayor speaking out on how the minority community is effected by decisions made by SBCCOG/SBESC is Carson Mayor Albert Robles. SBCCOG created SBESC to promote environmentally friendly energy efficient programs while they simultaneously accept money from environment polluters. 2UrbanGirls feels your frustration Mayor Robles.
SBESC reports that since launching the partnership in May 2014, they have identifeied 179,200 eligible homes, with 6,036 applications received and 4,308 being approved and 533 jobs created.
Carson: 21,375 eligible homes with 1,256 approved, out of 1,888 applications submitted, received funding totaling $87,812,803 with $18,495,741 expended. 167 jobs were created.
Inglewood: 19,038 eligible homes with 866 approved, out of 1,300 applications submitted, receiving funding totaling $60,615,728 with $12,331,357 expended. 111 jobs were created.
To put in perspective, the city with the 2nd highest number of eligible homes (Carson was #1 and Inglewood was #3), the city of Redondo Beach has 20,292 eligible homes with 152 approved out of 184 applications that were submitted. $20,161,910 was approved with with only $1,554,437 expended. They created 14 jobs.
What is wrong with this picture? It says that Carson and Inglewood residents are willing to possibly lose their homes for the sake of job creation. #ThisIsAmerica
SBESC