As federal support for energy assistance, weatherization, and efficiency programs faces increasing rollbacks and shifting priorities, municipal governments are stepping into the breach to address a growing crisis: household energy insecurity. A new white paper produced by researchers at Columbia University, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, highlights how cities are increasingly serving as the front line in the battle to help low-income residents keep their homes warm, cooled, and powered.
The research—part of the “Cities Uniting to Reduce Energy Insecurity” (CUREi) initiative—finds that the ability of a city to mitigate energy insecurity is largely dictated by its “enabling environment.” This institutional context, which includes state-level policies, municipal legal authority, and the nature of local relationships with utility regulators, determines the range of interventions available to local leaders.
The Landscape of Local Action
Household energy insecurity—the inability to adequately meet basic energy needs—has surged, with data indicating that 32.9 percent of U.S. households experienced some form of the crisis in 2024, up from 27.2 percent just four years earlier. In response, cities are moving beyond traditional bill-assistance programs to adopt more holistic strategies, including housing quality improvements, data-driven benefit enrollment, and aggressive engagement in utility regulatory proceedings.
The report examines three distinct municipal approaches:
- New York City, New York: Operating in a highly regulated state environment, the city leverages local legislation, such as the Housing Maintenance Code, and utilizes its influence to engage directly in state-level utility regulatory processes. Its approach is characterized by high levels of coordination between municipal agencies and state entities.
- Denver, Colorado: Denver benefits from a supportive state policy framework that relies on intermediary nonprofits, such as Energy Outreach Colorado, to bridge the gap between state funds and local implementation. The city focuses heavily on building performance standards and residential electrification.
- Atlanta, Georgia: In a more constrained state policy environment, Atlanta’s initiatives are largely driven by local partnerships and coalitions. The city relies on community-based organizations to fill service gaps and advance local resilience, often navigating a regulatory landscape where utilities hold significant institutional influence.
A Framework for Implementation
To help cities identify feasible strategies, the researchers organized municipal interventions into three tiers based on the required “enabling environment.”
Basic Tier interventions require minimal regulatory change or legislative authorization. These include digital platforms that simplify benefit applications (like Seattle’s CiviForm) and community navigator networks that provide in-person assistance to vulnerable households. These programs generally rely on administrative power and existing municipal budgets.
Intermediate Tier actions demand more substantial institutional capacity, such as municipal authority over building codes or franchise agreements. Examples include building energy performance standards (like those in Washington, D.C.) that mandate efficiency improvements and green banks that leverage public funds to attract private investment for residential retrofits.
Advanced Tier interventions are the most complex, requiring significant state authorization or deep involvement in utility regulation. These include Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), which allows cities to pool purchasing power to procure cleaner or more affordable energy, and formal, long-term intervention in utility rate cases to protect low-income customers from excessive price hikes.
Bridging the Gap
The authors of the white paper emphasize that these tiers do not serve as a ranking of success, but rather as a diagnostic tool for municipal leaders. By understanding where their city fits within the current landscape of state support and legal authority, officials can better assess which policies to adopt and where they might need to push for change in state-level policy.
Despite these efforts, the report warns that the persistent uncertainty of federal funding and the rising costs of energy system modernization present significant hurdles. As the responsibility for managing energy insecurity shifts further toward the local level, the report suggests that cities must focus on developing sustainable, long-term financing mechanisms and building stronger cross-sector coalitions. By treating the city as a collaborative platform, local governments can move from short-term emergency relief toward more durable solutions that improve housing quality and energy affordability for their most vulnerable residents.
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