The Department of Commerce administers multiple weatherization programs serving low- and moderate-income households throughout Washington State. Through partnerships with weatherization providers, the program delivers affordable housing preservation and energy efficiency upgrades by providing repairs, health and safety improvements, and installation of energy efficiency measures in low- income communities. To learn more, please the Weatherization and Energy Efficiency page.

Multifamily Expansion

According to the 2017 American Community Survey, nearly 750,000 households in Washington live in poverty. Over half of these households are in need of weatherization services with the majority of households living in single-family and multi-family rental units. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funding, Commerce is working to scale up the weatherization program in several different areas to increase the number of people served. One of these strategies is a targeted effort aimed at addressing 41% of Washington’s low-income individuals who live in multi-family housing and are more prone to experience energy insecurity (falling behind on energy bills, inability to cover food or other necessities costs so they can pay their energy bill, etc.). Commerce has dedicated 20% of the BIL funding to weatherizing multifamily properties.

Commerce uses the Department of Energy’s definition for multifamily buildings: buildings with 5 or more units which applies to low-rise multifamily (3 stories or fewer, between 5-24 units) and high-rise multifamily buildings (3 stories or more, 24 units or more).

See Washington’s Weatherization Manual for statewide multifamily definitions and policies.

Request for Information (RFI)

Responses to this short, online RFI will help us better understand the service provider marketplace for targeted multifamily weatherization services. The responses will help us gauge the types of entities that are interested in applying to the forthcoming RFP. This feedback will be used in conjunction with other methods to develop a fair and open competitive procurement (Request for Proposal) to select a Multifamily service provider(s).

Interested parties are encouraged, but not required, to submit responses with the link below. Commerce may contact respondents to ask clarifying questions as needed. Responding to this RFI is optional and is not a requirement to apply to the forthcoming solicitation. Further, an RFI submission carries no obligation nor does it any way qualify potential applicants.

For information to be considered, responses must be submitted by Friday, June 16th, 2023.
Please direct questions to Aden.Nevler@Commerce.wa.gov.