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Prioritising households in need

BSL prioritised support for eligible households based on the current energy efficiency of the home, resident health and financial capacity.

Eligibility

To be eligible for Climate Safe Homes, the participant, or someone who usually lived in their home, had to meet all the following criteria:

  • Have a health condition* made worse by living in a home that is too hot or too cold.
  • 2 Have an eligible low-income Commonwealth concession card (or met a low-income threshold).

Lives in a home without effective and affordable heating/cooling in the main living area and/or working solar panels and/or ceiling insulation.

Priority

A priority matrix was used to identify those households experiencing concurrent and compounding health and energy-related hardships. The matrix also helped identify households with other characteristics that indicated the potential for greater benefit from the program.

Priority households included those with:

  • no fixed heating or cooling
  • higher levels of health need
  • dependent children (particularly where there was a sole resident parent).

The majority of households (69%) were referred to the program by their energy provider (24%), BSL programs (23%) and health services (22%). A smaller group were referred through community information and support centres, councils, their housing provider or word of mouth.

Support tailored to individual’s needs

Throughout CSH, ongoing, tailored support and advocacy was critical in facilitating engagement with households. The program aimed to address the financial, trust, information and access barriers households face to making energy efficiency upgrades to their homes. BSL was able to respond to different levels of support needs across these four areas in the following ways:

  • Financial support: We leveraged available rebates to bring down the cost for all households while having a financial co-contribution where households had capacity to make one.
  • Trust: We linked households with pre-approved suppliers but provided an option for people to use their own (VEU/CEC accredited) supplier if they had a preference.
  • Information: We linked households to available information regarding their upgrades and were available to discuss and interpret this where needed.
  • Advocacy: We provided advocacy or supporting self-advocacy for households to access additional supports needed to make upgrades.

Some households only needed financial support to make upgrades. Others required help to understand the costs and benefits of upgrades to their home and to their health concerns before they could take part in the program. Notably, households without internet access require a significantly higher level of support. In a universal scheme, making higher rebates available for people with a low income would facilitate access for those who need only the financial support, not the navigation support.

*CSH eligible health conditions: respiratory (severe, persistent asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, other severe respiratory condition), cardiovascular disease, neurological/nervous system conditions (Cerebral Palsy, Motor Neuron Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkison’s Disease, Post-Polio Syndrome/Poliomyelitis, quadriplegia), inflammatory (Scleroderma, severe musculoskeletal condition such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, fibromyalgia, Lymphoedema), severe musculoskeletal condition (non-inflammatory), other medical condition requiring improved heating or cooling as confirmed by a medical practitioner.