Weatherization off to a slow start nationally, even slower start locally

FEBRUARY 22, 2010 E-MAIL THIS PRINTER FRIENDLY

A U.S. Government Accountability Act report released last week showed prevailing wage requirements built into the Recovery Act meant only a fraction of homes were updated last year that were supposed to be. The Department of Labor spent most of last year coming up with prevailing wages for each of the 3,000 counties in the US, releasing a report in September -- at which point many counties started the program.

Baltimore City did not launch its program until November, however, because training material put together by Baltimore City Community College and Sojourner-Douglass College was not ready on time, according to the head of the city's weatherization program at the Department of Housing and Community Development. Last July a mayor's spokesman said the city would have weatherized 700 homes by now. So far, the city has weatherized 97, with 70 more in the final phases. The total cost of weatherizing each house is about $4,200.

The City will not release the names of the people whose homes have been weatherized, however, so it is impossible to verify the numbers.

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Weatherization off to a slow start nationally, even slower start locally

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