http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/09/no-shovel-ready-bureaucrats.php?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150341484143188_22994983_10150341773558188#f1cce0692c
Redrant: Someone sent me this link targeted to my posting. For several decades before this the starter "house doctor" weatherization jobs were a good source of "starter" jobs for those in job training programs and in "halfway houses" where the potential workers wanted to go "straight". The work was often dirty (liquid foam sticks to skin and hair) and the starting pay was not much above minimum wage. It also did not require many
customer service "people" skills, let the boss do the talking. It was perfect work for these "lost souls".
Weatherizing mostly older houses is a bit like "combat" where the squad has to assess the situation and figure out how to tackle it. The "lost souls" were in on this analysis. Every situation is different but in the case of old houses you start with the foundation. If it is rock of flagstone it will continue to shift. The house will remain structurally secure but will continue to shift. That created the "leaky window" situation where the best option is to plug every fall and remove the leak plug in the spring. Cost: around fifty cents in materials and half an hour of time every autumn if done by tenant or owner for each window.
In Minneapolis in the 1980's "house doctor" weatherization was mandatory for rental and optional for owner occupied housing. I am generally against government mandates but this tightened up the rental housing a lot so heating bills throughout the city were significantly lower for rental housing.
In my case when I bought my http://searshouse.com in 1986 it leaked like a sieve. It opted for the utility subsidized two hour intro for something like $25 which included a door fan. Fortunately it was a cool autumn day so the door fan dramatically showed all my air leaks. The guy did sill foam and then pinpointed other leak areas with something that looked like areasol can Christmas tree flock (easy to remove). I let him leave a half hour early in exchange for switch and outlet foam and window weight leak stoppers. I declined the advance work then having more time than money I did it myself. Suffice it to say it worked and http://searshouse.com is not an energy hog.
Anyway, I have encountered quite a few of these "lost souls" who went into weatherization over the years. They are mostly minority, mostly black inner city. Of course the inner city has the highest percentage of old houses which tend to leak like a sieve and there is a surprisingly high percentage of home ownership. The "fifty cent, half an hour per window" thing can make a huge difference in these older inner city owner occupied houses.
In talking to these "lost souls" I got the sense that they developed a feeling of self worth because they could help these poor homeowners with leaky houses. Resources were very hard to come by but I found that a lot of these people found good regular jobs. My guess is that employers asked them about the weatherization ideas and this showed their knowledge and qualifications.
I didn't follow the stimulus closely at the time but I sort of get the idea that the stimulus money was directed to out of work union members who were out of work. This created a situation where mostly white male suburban union members were given these "weatherization" job at two to three times the pay of the industry.
People in the skilled trades learn to do specific tasks very well and quickly. They were operating here well outside their skill area and there was a pressure to do it fast.
The "shoestring" weatherization industry caught onto this and complained.
They had a legitimate complaint. Greg Lang
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