NEWPORT — On paper, it sounds like an opportunity to jump at: A free, local program that makes a home more energy efficient and cut power costs.
Helping Out Pend Oreille with Efficiency (HOPE) is an Income Qualified Energy Efficiency initiative through Pend Oreille PUD, designed to help income-qualified customers — especially those in manufactured homes — reduce the energy burden through weatherization, heat pump installations, duct sealing and other efficiency measures.
However, when PUD Conservation and Grants Manager Amber Gifford and 509Energy Owner Todd Williams tried to get the HOPE program from just paper into reality via Lazy Acres Mobile Home Community in Newport, they met some resistance from residents.
“I think at first people thought it was too good to be true,” Williams said. “We had hung up flyers, and I was handing them out, but I was a stranger, so I think people were like, ‘What’s the catch?’” That changed when one of the PUD employees in billing told Williams to talk to Eldonna Steckler. Steckler has been a Lazy Acres resident for several years and knows the neighborhood.
“She was our in,” Williams said. “Once we worked on her home, she told her friends and neighb...