emPOWER Gateway
Bringing Cost-Saving, Climate-Friendly Energy Efficiency to South East LA Homes
What is emPOWER Gateway?
emPOWER Gateway is a newly funded program to increase energy efficiency for low-income households within the most severely impacted neighborhoods in the Gateway Cities subregion. emPOWER Gateway combines the best elements of traditional community organizing with cutting-edge data management to provide easier access to ALL available environmental and climate incentives offered by SoCal Edison and other utilities, to help low-income households reduce costs and become more energy efficient.
emPOWER Gateway Communities of Focus lie within eleven Gateway cities located along the I-710 Corridor and are primarily designated AB617 neighborhoods to address air pollution impacts in environmental justice communities.
Communities of Focus
The emPOWER Gateway Communities of
Focus include 11 Gateway cities:
- Bell
- Long Beach*
- Bell Gardens
- Lynwood
- Commerce
- Maywood
- Compton
- South Gate
- Cudahy
- Vernon
- Huntington Park
* AB617 tracts only
Why These Gateway Communities?
The Gateway Cities subregion is composed of 27 cities in Southeast Los Angeles. The Gateway is home to 5% of the states population, but hosts 36% of its most severely impacted census tracts. In the emPOWER Gateway Communities of Focus, 95% of the population are classified as Disadvantaged ranking in the 95th percentile according to CalEnviroScreen 4.0, which is the highest pollution burden designation. Of 179,000 single family households in the Communities of Focus, 73% or 130,000 are also low-income. Targeting an area with the highest concentration of residents with the greatest needs is the best strategy to create a strong pipeline of households that qualify for all available money-saving environmental and climate incentive programs.
of California most severely impacted census tracts
16
%
of the population are classified as Disadvantaged
80
%
of single family households in Community of Focus are low-income
58
%
The goals of emPOWER Gateway are:
Intitial Programs Offered
Programs emPOWER Gateway will help deliver to residents include:
Southern California Edison
Residential Resources and Incentives
emPOWER promotes an extensive list of programs that prioritize giving support to low-income and marginalized communities across Southern California hurt most by toxic environments and a lack of economic opportunity.
emPOWER Gateway is a partnership between the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, Valley CAN’s emPOWER program and community-based organizations who will serve as paid partners to build trust in neighborhoods that have grown skeptical of similar programs. Funding for emPOWER Gateway is provided by Southern California Edison (SCE) and Southern California Renewable Energy Network (SoCal REN).