This Ann Arbor neighborhood is transforming into a sustainable energy hub, thanks to local nonprofit

Like many Ann Arborites, Melinda James tries to conserve energy at home. But the 73-year-old retiree, who has a fixed income and relies on a CPAP machine to sleep, worries about the possibility of power outages.

"[I] may have to go into a hotel," she says. "And who has hotel money?" 

James is a 25-year resident of Ann Arbor's Bryant neighborhood, where she's become part of a groundbreaking sustainability project that would alleviate her outage concerns and make her entire community more sustainable. 

The nonprofit Community Action Network (CAN) provides food, housing, and education assistance to low-income families in Washtenaw County. But the organization also offers free housing upgrades to decarbonize Bryant residents’ houses through a sustainability program started in 2021. 
Doug CoombeCommunity Action Network Executive Director Derrick Miller.
Sustainability is part of the organization’s broader work of helping families move from surviving to thriving, says Derrick Miller, the organization’s executive director.

"Part of it is making sure kids are growing up in healthy and safe homes," he said. "And [in] the Bryant neighborhood, [it] turns out a lot of the houses were not actually very healthy." 

Problems like gas leaks, black mold, pests, and leaky roofs make homes unsafe as well as energy inefficient.

The ultimate goal is to fully decarbonize the Bryant neighborhood, saving residents money on their utility bills and creating the infrastructure necessary to keep the power on during prolonged outages. 

19 streets

The Bryant neighborhood comprises 19 streets just south of I-94 off of Stone School Road. Miller estimates there are 262 homes in the neighborhood. Those are almost evenly split between renters and homeowners, with some people living in the neighborhood since it was built in the '70s. 

Many residents live on fixed incomes like James, or live in multigenerational homes. Just paying their current utility bills is a struggle, says Mallika Kothari, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. 

"They struggle to make that decision: heat or eat," she says. 

Kothari is writing her dissertation about the Bryant neighborhood and its residents' energy needs. She’s talked to about 40 families so far. 

Michigan residents pay more per kilowatt hour for electricity than most other states, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. With an average income $18,000 less than the Washtenaw County average, a lot of Bryant residents can’t afford to make repairs to their home, let alone major upgrades that will reduce their monthly utility bills. 

So CAN does it for them. 

Getting started

CAN starts with an energy assessment for each house, then addresses any repairs free of charge. Ideally, CAN staff want to weatherize, electrify, solarize, and upgrade each house to geothermal HVAC systems. 

The first upgrades usually involve weatherizing the house. That means adding insulation and new doors and windows to minimize how much air escapes or gets into the house. This is the stage where a lot of home repairs happen, too. 

CAN replaced the windows and doors in James’ house. She’s due to get more insulation, too. She hasn’t seen a change in her utility bills yet, but she’s grateful for the help. 
Doug CoombeSolar panels on a home in Bryant neighborhood.
"So far, everything is excellent," she says. "Everything to me is considered a blessing." 

James is also getting a new furnace and water heater. She says hers are so old that the manufacturer doesn’t make them anymore. The new appliances are part of CAN’s electrification efforts, which aim to replace gas-using units with more energy-efficient electric versions. CAN works with the county’s Office of Community and Economic Development to replace old and potentially dangerous HVAC appliances in residents’ homes. 

With these upgrades, residents’ homes are safer, more energy efficient, and ready for bigger changes, like solarization and new HVAC systems. It’s the best approach to reduce utility costs and increase resilience, according to research by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Weaving resources

The program needs a lot of investment up front. Thanks to money from the federal Inflation Reduction Act, there’s an influx of state and federal programs that help homeowners (and renters) update their homes to save energy. But it’s a lot to navigate. 

"We're having to braid together a lot of different resources to make that happen," Miller says. 

Some funding comes directly to CAN from agencies like the Michigan Public Service Commission or the U.S. Department of Energy. But CAN also helps residents navigate a variety of local, state, and federal programs that award individual homeowners or renters. Those forms can be extremely tedious, says Krystal Steward, CAN’s director of community outreach. 
Doug CoombeCommunity Action Network Director of Community Outreach Krystal Steward.
"It should be way more simple than what it is," she says. "But you know, whenever something is free, and something that's free to this extent, they're going to make you jump through a ton of hoops." 

Steward, a Bryant resident for over 10 years, knows what it’s like to struggle with paying for utilities and home repairs. But her work at CAN is really rewarding, she says. She’s worked with multiple residents who have found unexpected – and scary – problems with their house. 

"That was something that really sat home with me," she says. "Because if we weren't doing these assessments and this work, these are things that we wouldn't have found out."

Building resilience

Michigan’s big utility providers have their own sustainability projects. DTE Energy, which provides electricity and gas for the Ann Arbor area, has invested in upgrading its grid, trimming trees, and green energy endeavors like solar farms.

Miller says that’s not enough. 

"What the utility companies are doing is too little, too late, period," he says. 

Michigan experiences more power outages than most other states. In November, Ann Arbor voted to create a city-run sustainable energy utility (SEU). It won’t mean cutting the cord to DTE, but it will make it easier for residents to save money on their bills and keep the power on, even when the utility’s grid goes down. CAN wants to have a similar effect by installing solar power systems and building a geothermal district.

Solarization means equipping houses with solar panels and a battery that can store excess energy produced. Not all houses will be good candidates for solar power, so some will be outfitted to produce extra energy for other homes. This will be done in anticipation of a neighborhood microgrid, which will be possible thanks to Ann Arbor’s SEU. 

Geothermal HVAC systems would replace furnaces and air conditioning units. Geothermal systems pull air from the ground into a building to maintain its temperature. Air underground stays relatively stable at about 55 degrees, making it a natural source of temperature control. 
Doug CoombeKrystal Steward and Derrick Miller in front of the solar panels on Bryant Community Center.
Those upgrades will phase out natural gas and reduce homes' overall energy usage, further reducing utility bills and residents’ carbon footprint. 

Solar power systems equipped with batteries can store extra power generated and use it during outages. With the SEU, the neighborhood can create its own microgrid. Houses with solar panels and batteries could share energy with their neighbors. 

That’s the final piece of Kothari’s research, she says – designing a backup power system "that actually suits the needs of the residents in Bryant." James, frustrated with power outages, likes the idea of the neighborhood having its own microgrid. 

"It makes you mad if you pay your bill and [a power outage] happens," she says. 

But to make it happen, CAN needs to cross one more funding hurdle for the program: a $10 million pot from the U.S. Department of Energy for a geothermal district. Instead of installing systems in homes one by one, a district would be more cost-effective, Miller says.

That last piece of the decarbonization puzzle is potentially the most difficult. Geothermal systems require a lot of digging, which is laborious and disruptive, Miller says. The organization’s original goal was to fully decarbonize the neighborhood by 2030. That’s still doable thanks to the progress CAN has made, Steward says. 

The neighborhood community center is part of that goal. It’s already home to 20 kilowatts of solar power, with a 32-kilowatt battery system. CAN staff plan to add an additional 20 kilowatts of solar to the building. And they’ve started work on a geothermal system for the building. 

A holistic approach

CAN’s approach is unique, Miller says. 

"There's a lot of people that are doing energy efficiency work," he says. "But they're not like, 'Hey, let's find an existing neighborhood and figure out how to make it carbon neutral.'" 

The organization approaches carbon neutrality as a community project, instead of individual homes doing it alone. 

Talking to – and working with – the communities most impacted by climate change is paramount, Kothari says. 

"It's really important, especially as we move to meeting our climate goals, that we're taking a bottom-up approach and focusing on these communities first," she says.

Elinor Epperson is a freelance journalist based in Ypsilanti. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at Michigan State University, focusing on environmental, health, and science reporting.  

All photos by Doug Coombe.