AJ Patton is CEO of 548 Enterprises, which develops affordable, quality, sustainable, and energy-efficient housing for Chicago’s marginalized communities.
The burden of energy costs can be life-altering. I still vividly remember the day my mother received a $400 gas heating bill in 1999. We were living in apartment unit 548, which had a hole in the roof, and my mother made only $10/hour at the time. Money was tight and we were struggling to make ends meet. Despite my mother’s best efforts, the gas was shut off and we were forced to boil water for more than a year just to take baths.
