The Engaging Tenants in Apartment Retrofits Resource Guide and the process to develop it will allow Calgary ACORN to meld its burgeoning campaigns for affordable and livable housing with campaigns for energy-efficiency apartment retrofits. In doing so, they will connect the dots between popular affordable and livable rental housing and greenhouse (GHG) reduction campaigning.

Through direct dialogue and door to door surveying of tenants, ACORN will quickly engage and develop an understanding of Calgary's tenant community and the issues they face.

The development of the Calgary Tenant Guide laid the groundwork for the scale-up of their Eco-Tenant Union’s (ETU) organizing model. The ETU model combines ACORN’s highly popular tenant-rights expansion campaign with campaigns that will tackle energy-poverty campaigning and spur action on apartment retrofits.

ACORN's Eco-Tenant Working Group (ETWG) was developed by surveying tenants door-to-door and engaging existing Calgary ACORN leaders. The ETWG is an integral part of ACORN’s plans moving forward, heavily informing the project.

Our tenant engagement model will serve as a basis for their tenant engagement. By talking about tenant issues first, they can spark longer-term relationships that connect tenant rights with environmental issues.

The Tenant Survey gave ACORN quantitative research to back up its strategic plan for integrating apartment-retrofits campaigning with its tenant-right campaigns. The survey results showed that low-to-moderate income tenants are concerned about climate change and want to be part of a solution. Lastly, the survey indicated that by directly engaging low-to-moderate tenants (working-class people), they can out-organize the province’s powerful climate deniers.

The guidebook is an effective popular education tool that ACORN will use to start conversations on the connection among substandard building conditions, energy poverty and the GHG reduction in Calgary's apartments.

The policy research enabled them to have a better understanding of the specific policy reforms that are achievable in the short, medium, and long-term.