01/06/2026
***Back to Basics: How Energy Burden Threatens Affordable Housing in Virginia***
Beyond rent: The energy costs driving housing affordability further out of reach
When we talk about the affordable housing crisis in Virginia, we often focus on soaring rents and home prices. But there’s another cost silently eroding housing affordability across the Commonwealth: energy burden.
What Is Energy Burden?
Energy burden represents the percentage of household income spent on energy costs—heating, cooling, and electricity. Financial advisors generally consider spending more than 6% of income on energy to be unaffordable. Yet for thousands of Virginia families, energy costs are consuming a far greater share of their budgets.
The scale of this challenge is significant. A 2022 analysis from the Virginia Center for Housing Research (VCHR) found that approximately 718,684 Virginia households were paying more than 6% of their income on energy costs. Among these, about 210,344 were low-income households facing the highest energy costs in their regions—families for whom energy efficiency interventions could be transformative. While these figures are a few years old, they provide the most comprehensive Virginia-specific data available and likely underestimate today’s burden given rising energy costs.
The reality is stark: According to recent research from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), one in four low-income residents in Richmond are severely energy burdened, spending more than 17.5% of their income on energy costs.
The Disproportionate Impact
This burden doesn’t fall equally on all Virginians—or all Americans. High energy burdens disproportionately affect communities of color, rural residents, and women.
Low-income households: While average households may spend 3–5% of income on energy, low-income families face dramatically higher burdens, often exceeding 17%. VCHR’s 2022 analysis found that even households with extremely low incomes can be burdened by relatively small energy bills, underscoring how tight these budgets truly are.
Communities of color: In Richmond, Black and Hispanic households experience energy burdens above 6.9% and 6.2%, respectively—demonstrating clear racial disparities in energy affordability. Nationally, this pattern holds: communities of color bear a disproportionate share of energy cost burdens.
Rural communities: Many rural Virginians face compounded challenges of aging housing stock, limited energy efficiency programs, and higher transportation costs to access essential services.
What This Looks Like in Virginia Communities
The numbers become more urgent when we look at specific neighborhoods. VCHR’s 2022 research mapped energy burden at the census tract level, revealing where the need is most concentrated.
In Charlottesville, every one of the city’s 12 census tracts included households paying more than $244 per month in energy costs. But the burden concentrated in particular places: the Fifeville, 10th and Page, and Venable neighborhoods had at least 300 households with high energy costs, and 81% of those households were low-income and energy-burdened.
In Martinsville, households in five tracts faced average energy costs exceeding $289 per month. The Westend, Northside, and Eastend areas surrounding the city center showed the highest concentration of need—in one tract alone, at least 180 households had high energy costs, with 89% being low-income and energy-burdened.
These patterns have likely intensified since 2022, but the geographic concentrations identified in VCHR’s research remain valuable for targeting interventions today. These aren’t just statistics. They represent families making impossible choices every month.
The Double Squeeze on Affordable Housing
For families already struggling with housing costs, high energy bills create impossible choices. When over 30% of income goes to housing and another 15–20% to energy, what’s left for food, healthcare, transportation, and other necessities?
The consequences are severe. High energy bills can directly contribute to housing instability, as families must choose between keeping the lights on or paying rent. This precarious balance often leads to eviction—a crisis particularly acute in Richmond, which has one of the highest eviction rates nationally.
Energy Efficiency: A Critical Solution
Improving energy efficiency represents one of the most effective approaches to reducing energy burden while preserving affordable housing. VCHR’s research identified key factors that drive high energy costs: single-family detached homes, larger household sizes, and older housing stock all correlate with higher bills. This points directly to where interventions can have the greatest impact.
The benefits of efficiency investments extend across multiple dimensions:
Lower operating costs: Energy-efficient affordable housing developments have significantly lower utility costs, allowing more families to afford stable housing.
Health improvements: Proper insulation, ventilation, and modern appliances reduce health issues like asthma and respiratory problems, decreasing healthcare costs.
Climate resilience: Energy-efficient homes better withstand temperature extremes, protecting vulnerable residents during increasingly common weather events.
Targeted impact: By identifying areas where high energy costs, low incomes, and energy burden overlap, weatherization and rehabilitation providers can operate more effectively—maximizing both household savings and energy conservation.
Virginia’s Response: Progress and Gaps
Virginia has taken important steps toward addressing energy burden through programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). However, a recent state report reveals that only 23% of eligible Virginia households receive this assistance.
The Virginia Clean Economy Act increased required utility investment in energy efficiency programs for low and moderate-income customers from 5% to 15% of total program spending. While promising, implementation has been uneven, and many families remain unable to access these programs.
What’s Next for Virginia?
Virginia doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel—effective programs and robust research already exist. What’s needed now is the commitment to scale them.
Weatherization and energy efficiency programs have a proven track record of reducing energy costs for low-income households while conserving energy resources. Expanding these existing programs to reach more households, particularly in the neighborhoods where research shows the greatest concentration of need, would deliver immediate benefits.
Equally important is increasing coordination between housing assistance and energy assistance programs. Too often, these efforts operate in silos. Research like VCHR’s 2022 analysis—which mapped energy burden down to the census tract level—provides the tools to align investments and maximize impact. Supporting continued research of this kind ensures that limited resources reach the families who need them most.
The Bottom Line
Affordable housing isn’t truly affordable if families can’t afford to keep the lights on. With hundreds of thousands of Virginia households spending more than 6% of their income on energy—and low-income families routinely facing burdens of 17% or more—the urgency is clear.
By tackling energy burden head-on, Virginia can not only make housing more affordable but also improve health outcomes, reduce evictions, and advance climate goals. The path forward requires recognizing that energy affordability and housing affordability are two sides of the same coin—and addressing them together creates stronger, more resilient communities for all Virginians.
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Housing Forward Virginia works to help leaders understand the importance of safe, stable, and affordable housing to vibrant, equitable communities. Learn more about our research and advocacy at housingforwardva.org.
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