Arizona Tea Party Network

Bringing Together Arizona
Patriots & Events...
Updated  1/7/2012


Designer By
Patsy Smith
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I Pledge Allegiance
to the flag of the
United States of
America,
and to the republic
for which it
stands, one nation
under god,
indivisible with
liberty and
justice for all.
WE
THE
PEOPLE
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Agenda 21
is a comprehensive plan of action to be
taken globally, nationally and locally by
organizations of the United Nations System

The Mission of the Office of
Sustainable Housing and
Communities


To create strong, sustainable communities by connecting housing to jobs, fostering
local innovation, and helping to build a clean energy economy.

In order to better connect housing to jobs, the office will work to coordinate federal
housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in order to
reduce transportation costs for families, improve housing affordability, save energy,
and increase access to housing and employment opportunities. By ensuring that
housing is located near job centers and affordable, accessible transportation, we will
nurture healthier, more inclusive communities which provide opportunities for people
of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to live, work, and learn together.

In order to foster and encourage local innovation, we will create an unprecedented
partnership across federal agencies and provide resources and tools to help
communities realize their own visions for building more livable, walkable,
environmentally sustainable regions.


In addition, the office will help contribute to building a new clean energy economy by
working with other federal agencies, states and local communities, and industry
partners to catalyze innovation and develop strategies to reduce energy consumption
in the residential sector. These innovations will help create new green jobs, spur
economic growth, and assist regions to become more competitive on a national and
global scale.
There are two main areas of operation that work together to comprise the Office of
Sustainable Housing and Communities: the Sustainable Communities Initiative and the
Energy Innovation Fund.

The objective of the Sustainable Communities Initiative is to stimulate more integrated
and sophisticated regional planning to guide state, metropolitan, and local investments
in land use, transportation and housing, as well as to challenge localities to undertake
zoning and land use reforms. This Initiative has four main tasks.

First, the office partners with our counterparts in the Department of Transportation
(DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to offer Sustainable
Communities Planning Grants.
Through this partnership we seek to catalyze a new generation of integrated
metropolitan transportation, housing, land use and energy planning, using state of the
art data, analytic tools and Geographic Information Systems. Second, the Initiative
funds Sustainable Communities Challenge Grants to provide a local complement to the
regional planning initiative, enabling multi-jurisdictional partnerships to establish
policies, codes, tools and critical capital investments needed to achieve sustainable
and inclusive development. Third, the Initiative supports capacity-building and a
clearinghouse designed to support both grant recipients, as well as other communities
interested in implementing sustainable community strategies. Finally, the Initiative
provides funding for a joint HUD-DOT-EPA research effort designed to advance
transportation and housing linkages on a number of levels.

The objective of the Energy Innovation Fund is to catalyze innovations in the
residential energy efficiency sector that have promise of replicability and help create a
standardized home energy efficient retrofit market. The office partners with the
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to test, and where feasible bring to scale, new
and innovative products such as energy efficient and location efficient mortgages. A
Multifamily Energy Pilot will increase energy efficiency in the multifamily housing
market. An Energy Efficient Mortgage Innovation pilot program is intended to make it
easier and less expensive for homebuyers and existing homeowners to finance energy
improvements, as well as to utilize improved home energy rating tools that will
provide better information on home energy costs for consumers when buying or
renting a home, or refinancing an existing mortgage.

In addition, the office collaborates with HUD program offices, DOE and EPA to develop
strategies to reduce energy consumption in public and assisted housing some 5 million
units of affordable housing nation-wide whose energy costs approach $6 billion
annually. Significant opportunities exist for lowering these costs; the Office will play a
key role in working with HUD partners and programs to develop strategies, identify
incentives, increase capacity, and lower barriers to implementing energy efficiency
programs and installing clean energy systems in these properties.
RIGHTS COME FROM GOD,
NOT THE STATE!
"You have rights antecedent to all earthly
governments; rights that cannot be repealed or
restrained by human laws; rights derived from
the Great Legislator of the Universe."

John Adams,
Second President of the United States