PACE Funding helps communities reduce energy and water usage, reach climate change policy goals, prepare for natural disasters
LOS GATOS, Calif. – The City of Alhambra, in Los Angeles County, has voted unanimously to approve the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) home improvement financing option, available through the California-based company Home Run Financing. This innovative financing mechanism helps communities upgrade their housing stock to be more energy and water efficient and more resilient in the face of earthquakes and wildfires, while also creating good jobs in the clean energy sector.
PACE enables homeowners to make renewable energy, energy and water efficiency, and earthquake and wildfire related upgrades to their home, then pay over time through their property taxes. Because of this payment mechanism, PACE providers must be approved by each city and county.
“With rising property prices and energy costs, on top of the ongoing drought and the increasing threat of wildfires, PACE is even more relevant in California today than it was when it was introduced a decade ago,” added Giles.
Alhambra joins nearby Arcadia, Covina and Montebello, all of which approved PACE in 2021. Residents of several other cities in Los Angeles County also have access to Home Run PACE financing. The full list of those cities now includes Agoura Hills, Alhambra, Arcadia, Azusa, Baldwin Park, Claremont, Commerce, Covina, Cudahy, Duarte, El Monte, Gardena, Glendale, Glendora, Inglewood, La Verne, Lancaster, Long Beach, City of Los Angeles, Lynwood, Montebello, Monterey Park, Norwalk, Palmdale, Redondo Beach, Santa Fe Springs, Santa Monica, Torrance, Walnut, West Covina and West Hollywood.
“We have been working in partnership with local city and county governments across California to make this innovative financing option available to more homeowners, including those who need to make critical wildfire and earthquake safety improvements to their property,” explained Robert Giles, CEO of Home Run Financing. “I’m proud to be a part of this effort, which also includes reducing carbon emissions to protect our climate.”
The PACE financing model has evolved significantly over the last decade in California. It now provides the strongest consumer protections of any home improvement financing product. Home Run Financing works closely with the state Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to provide transparency and active oversight of their PACE financing activity. Newly enhanced protections require price cap protections on project costs; additional protections for the elderly and low-income homeowners, as well as financial hardship protection policies; term verification calls to confirm the homeowner understands the terms of their contract; a call to verify the project is complete before the contractor gets paid; third-party inspection of the completed project; and rigorous contractor oversight and training, among several other stringent consumer protection measures.
In California to date, Home Run Financing has financed more than 14,000 projects, generated an annual reduction of 40,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and conserved 74 million gallons of water. The increase in home improvement work has created more than 3,720 living-wage jobs and generated $481 million in private investment in local communities across the state.
About Home Run Financing
PACE Funding Group, LLC, now doing business as Home Run Financing, started in California in 2014 and has helped tens of thousands of homeowners across California, Missouri and Florida make upgrades to their properties. The company offers Home Run PACE financing for residential renewable energy, energy and water efficiency, and earthquake, wildfire and hurricane upgrades and repairs. They also offer Home Run Loans, a traditional unsecured product that covers a wide variety of home improvement projects. Home Run Financing PACE projects have set in place 51,000 metric tons of annual carbon emission reductions, conserved 74 million gallons of water, created more than 4,950 living-wage jobs, and generated $577 million in private investment in local communities. The company works with a broad network of reputable, licensed contractors nationwide.