Jamaica

Learn How to Become a BPI Contractor

Event on May 18, 2011

Become Building Performance Institute (BPI) Certified

Are you a home improvement contractor looking to increase sales and marketing potential?

The Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) is a national standards development and credentialing organization for residential energy efficiency retrofit work. BPI offers professional certification examinations on assessment and upgrade of residential buildings - both single-family and multifamily.

How Your Company Will Benefit:

Learn how to become BPI certified
Benefits of BPI certification
NYSERDA incentives to reimburse cost of courses
No-cost services to recruit and train employees

Featured Speaker: Jay-E Emmingham, Senior Energy $mart Communities Coordinator for Brooklyn & Queens

Event Details

Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

NYC Business Solutions, Queens Center , 168-25 Jamaica Avenue 2nd Floor, Jamaica, New York 14332

Building in Good Jobs

Report last updated December 7, 2006

In cities around the country, private sector development and public sector support have combined to create building booms in places that only a few decades ago were in seemingly irreversible decline. However, both working poverty and chronic unemployment in central cities remain disturbingly high.

Workforce "linkage" policies present an opportunity to help people make a lasting exit from poverty by tying economic development projects directly to the creation of quality jobs and training opportunities for people struggling to get ahead.

PrattCenter-Building_in_Good_Jobs_Report.pdf

Economic and Workforce Development

Project last updated April 6, 2009

Planning for Jobs and Training Opportunities

The Pratt Center has been in the forefront of efforts to make sure that New York City's land use and development policies and programs promote strong employment and training opportunities, and link major economic development projects with nearby residents and workers.

Energy Efficiency Comes to New York Neighborhoods

News last updated November 24, 2010

City Council Speaker helps Pratt Center and partners launch citywide green home upgrade program

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined the Pratt Center, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and other partners on November 16 in the front yard of Theresa Braithwaite's Hancock Street house to inaugurate Retrofit NYC Block by Block, a new initiative to get New Yorkers to reduce their energy use through smart investments in their homes. Energy retrofits — home improvements that reduce the use of heating fuel, electricity, and water — can significantly reduce energy bills, make homes healthier and more comfortable, and reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions.

The New York City Council is sponsoring a one-year program that calls on community development groups in Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens to enlist property owners in their neighborhoods to undertake retrofits, with the help of incentive programs from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), utility company programs, and federal grants and tax credits.

"When we saw the opportunity to fund $400,000 to help hundreds of homes throughout the City, particularly for underserved neighborhoods in the outer boroughs, we jumped at it," Speaker Quinn said. "This is a great initiative that I’m proud to support and I want to thank Pratt Center for Community Development and all the neighborhood partners for making our City green — one home at a time.”

Transportation Equity Atlas Debuts

News last updated October 6, 2010

The Pratt Center has just released the Transportation Equity Atlas, a collection of downloadable maps showing commuting patterns and the length of rides to work for residents of a dozen low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in New York City, from East Flatbush to East Elmhurst to Washington Heights. The Atlas also shows where workers at major employment centers in the boroughs live, and how they get to work.

The Transportation Equity Atlas arrives just as the MTA announces fare hikes that add to the burden borne by low-income riders, who have already suffered the brunt of recent cutbacks in service.

Based on 2000 U.S. Census data, the Transportation Equity Atlas shows that even when the transit system had more frequent and extensive service, riders in the Atlas neighborhoods endured extremely long commutes to work. For example, more than half of subway riders in Soundview, in the Bronx, had rides of one hour or more.