Paul Szmal: Good morning 837, the Veterans Day Monday edition of FLX Morning. We're joined in studio by Gregory Peck from Finger Lakes Community Action. Good morning and welcome back. Thank you, thank you sir. We're happy to have you here. The Courtyard Apartments in Geneva are going to undergo a big energy efficiency makeover. Let's start with a grant, this 4.5 million dollar federal grant part of the infrastructure plan that went through. How did that come about and congratulations on getting it.
Gregory Peck: Well thank you very much. Well it came about with a lot of hard work for myself, my supervisor Ryan Robbins and my co-worker Nicholas Schrader. And it also came about, Ted, I'm going to intentionally drop names that helped with the project. Jackie Augustine at Blueprint Geneva gave us a nice letter of reference. Bob Doblin who is the head of the HUD program and overseas Courtyard Apartments was essential. Helco as well and David West who is the city economic developer. So in order for a grant to work no matter what size, you need a lot of people invested in the project and a lot of people pitching in and embracing it. And I do appreciate all those people pitching in and doing that.
So the grant as you said is four and a half million dollars. It was one of 14 that we got through the Department of Energy in the United States. So that's all 50 states competing and we were lucky enough to get one of the 14. There were two projects downstate that got it as well. So it is a big deal for us. Four and a half million dollars is approximately 25% of our entire budget at Finger Lakes Community Action.
Paul Szmal: Wow. So it is just awesome and we're so excited to help the people at Courtyard Apartments and to bring that into the 21st century. It's the Department of Energy's Sustainable Energy Resources for Consumers Grant Program. Again it's part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
So do you have dedicated grant writers on staff and how do they kind of monitor?
Gregory Peck: Well we don't. It's not really dedicated. I guess I'm more so and my colleague Donna Johnson with the both of us. We sort of look out and we look for grants that fit with our project. So I concentrate basically on the weatherization part of it. Right now we we got a grant from ESL through our Safe Homes Project which Wanda Felix runs. That's a program for seniors to fix up their houses. Right now I have in the works something called VRIP. It's called it's in reference to house homes that are deemed uninhabitable and unmarketable. Right. And I have a two million dollar grant into homes and community renewal to get that and that helps people. It's going to help with the housing crisis if we get it. Rehabilitating houses for landlords and then running them to low-income people as well.
Paul Szmal: I know a lot of people were commenting about your grant application and how good it was. What goes, you've done this a while now, what goes into a good grant application that helps you secure this? It's a major win.
Gregory Peck: It needs to be detail-oriented. You need to get a lot of people, as I already mentioned, on board and embracing it. It's a lot about demographics and making sure you're answering the questions that are in the grant. I don't feel like it's hard, it's just detail-oriented and cumbersome. The GIS department in Ontario County helped me get some stats together in demographics. The Board of Elections, that's part of it too. People voting down in courtyard apartments, they have a polling place. So that's important that you mention that, that it's part of the community and that's how those people elect various representatives. So that's again, detail-oriented and getting a lot of people on board.
Paul Szmal: So now what is the relationship between Finger Lakes Community Action and the Geneva Housing Authority, which runs the courtyard apartments?
Gregory Peck: So we just recently did the heat pump technology over at an electrical at Lyceum Heights, which is a senior home in Geneva. And so that's how we connect with that. We've also had HUD grants just nationally as well. So we have that thing with Bob Doblin here. We have some history and experience and then Andy, I forget his last name, Andy Tymon, I think his name, who used to run it as well. So it's history and it's history works. You keep building upon that.
Paul Szmal: So you talked about the heat pumps. They're going to be installed in 12 buildings at courtyard apartments, 122 units. Tell us about how those work and they provide both heating and air conditioning.
Gregory Peck: And air conditioning they don't have at the current time. Right, they don't have it. I'm not sure if you know the history of courtyard apartments, but originally it was a Japanese internment. That's when it was built and so forth with that and then became Dixon's Homes and then Charters Homes and now Courtyard Apartments. So it's gone through some name changes. So heat pump technology, what it isn't, what it's not, it's not an air conditioner and it's not a furnace. So what it basically does, it relies on refrigeration in the simplest terms. If you think of how an air conditioner work, again it's not an air conditioner, but the pump what it does in the summertime, it draws out the heat from the apartment and through the refrigeration disperses it into the air with that. And then in the wintertime what happens, it draws in heat from the outside, which not the cold weather heat, but the cold, the warm weather, from the heat, from the ground, the air as well. And that brings it in to the apartment and then disperses it. So it's really a cleaner and healthier way to live. It's less reliable on fossil fuels, but it's basically a compressor that absorbs and releases the heat.
Paul Szmal: And Courtyard Apartments is now using natural gas. Will these units, are they also running gas or is it gonna be different fuel?
Gregory Peck: No, no, it will be natural gas. Okay, but it's energy efficient, so we'll probably use a lot less.
Paul Szmal: Yes, yes, it's a lot less. Yeah, it's not completely obliterated, but a lot less. And then I would imagine that maintenance is probably lessened when you're not having to replace, I mean again for a 12-building apartment complex, you know, they must be replacing their regular furnaces every 10 years.
Gregory Peck: Absolutely, absolutely. It's a non-stop process that, and again, the buildings have been around since the 40s, and so it is an ongoing process with this. But in the end, it's just no other reason, just the comfort level of actually having air conditioning in these apartments, which these people deserve.
Paul Szmal: Well, exactly, that's you just led into what I was gonna say, which is if you're living in a low-income apartment complex, sometimes you wonder if people are thinking about you, and so for someone to come in and go, here's the latest technology, here's a lot cooler buildings in the summer, that's got to be a big boost for those tenants.
Gregory Peck: Right, exactly, and that's, in the end, that's what it matters, is their way of living, their comfort level, that's the end-all project. How it works, how we got the grant and so forth, isn't that important to them as just changing their lifestyle, if you will. So it's really an exciting program, it's very costly, and we feel very fortunate to have earned it.
Paul Szmal: And you mentioned the home improvement project that we talked about here a couple of months ago. I mean, you're doing a lot of things to improve people's lives, one at a time.
Gregory Peck: Yep, yep, we definitely do, and we just want to let you know, we have an ongoing weatherization grant that we've had for years and years and years through Home and Community Renewal. We're always looking to add to our waiting list. The waiting list isn't outrageous, it's six months to a year, and lots of times that goes a little faster than people think. You know, people move out of the area, people are deceased, so sometimes people get a little bit nervous about it, that it will be forever. But it really is, it really is a nice program. So we have the safe homes, we have the weatherization program, and again, that's through the, and you knew the term, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the bill. And that is, they're exciting programs. And again, they're for Wayne, Ontario, and Cayuga County. So our folks in Auburn and that area can participate as well.
Paul Szmal: Well that covers our whole listening area here on Finger Lakes Newsradio. Give us a preview of our upcoming chat in December.
Gregory Peck: So in December, we're going to have Healthy Families is coming in for Wayne County. Her name's Alison Burroughs. She's going to talk a little bit about, this is exclusively for Wayne County's, but it's a program that focuses on children before Head Start, more infant preschool care, and helping people get set, get ready for children, helping them for school readiness, helping them just getting ready for a new child in the family, I guess. Alison's the expert on that. So when she's here, she'll give you the details there. That'll be on, I believe it's December 9th, is that right?
Paul Szmal: That sounds right. More on these programs and others at FingerLakesCommunityAction.org. Gregory Pexman with us. Always great to see you, and thanks for bringing us this exciting news.
Gregory Peck: Thank you, sir. Appreciate the time. It's 847 FLX Morning.
