A Shelter in the Storm?

This article is originally from Crain’s Cleveland Business, published August 24, 2026.

Climate experts from a dozen states gathered in Cleveland on March 30 at the three-day 2026 Midwest Climate Summit to discuss climate issues facing the region.

A tornado warning, and later a confirmed touchdown in neighboring Geauga County, locked down attendees — a moment of bitter irony at a conference dedicated to the very forces making such storms more frequent. It was also a reminder: Cleveland is not the climate refuge its boosters sometimes claim.

The Great Lakes region has been touted as a potential refuge from climate extremes and disasters. It’s a notion repeated by leaders — just this month, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb told the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy that he believes the city is a haven — and by media outlets.

But, experts will tell you, Cleveland is not a climate haven. In fairness, no place really is. The challenge — and the opportunity — lies in housing. Northeast Ohio’s aging building stock was not designed for the climate it now faces, and state building codes lag behind modern resilience standards. Without significant infrastructure investment, experts say, the region’s advantages won’t translate into meaningful shelter from climate disruption.
“There can be a fair bit of hubris regionally that any Great Lakes city is a climate haven,” said Jenita McGowan, Cuyahoga County’s Chief of Sustainability and Climate. “There are a lot of assumptions that go into that, but we have hazards we can expect to see more frequently and intensely in the future. The shortlist is high heat, extreme weather, including precipitation and high winds, and periods of drought.”

“There can be a fair bit of hubris regionally that any Great Lakes city is a climate haven.” – Jenita McGowan, Cuyahoga County

The hottest year on record in Cuyahoga County was 2024, nine degrees above normal, according to federal weather data. Total precipitation has increased by a foot over a century. Extreme storms have increased from an average of 2.3 per year to 7.2 per year.

In 2024, much of the country, including Ohio, fell under the most extreme drought in recorded history. But Cleveland fared better than most. The proximity to freshwater is part of why cities along the Great Lakes have gained a reputation as a better option in an era of climate change.

But the impact of climate change can come from anywhere.

In July, smoke from Canadian wildfires, which the Canadian government says are larger, hotter and more destructive due to climate change, once again permeated Cleveland’s air, prompting advisories recommending limited time outside.

Temperatures reached into the 90s with high levels of humidity. If a home didn’t have air conditioning (10% of the county) and effective insulation (more than half of the region), residents had to make a difficult choice — stay inside and bake or go outside and choke.

Still, the Greater Cleveland region and, especially, Lake Erie offer distinct advantages that could be attractive to people needing to relocate due to the scale of disasters that can occur elsewhere.

But for that to be possible, experts say the city and Cuyahoga County need better infrastructure, specifically housing, to provide that shelter.

“A lot of the infrastructure is built on what we would consider old science,” said Aaron Wilson, the State Climatologist of Ohio. “If we update for the last 25 years of data, a lot of places in Ohio find that what we call 100-year rain events are actually occurring a lot more frequently than that. So it’s almost as if infrastructure that’s being built now is already climate obsolete by the time it’s finished.”

Cleveland’s current housing stock needs to undergo a transformation if residents are going to withstand frigid cold to sweltering heat, and to weather disruptions ranging from hazardous air to power outages, according to both the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County’s climate action plans.

McGowan said the county’s water and heat issues stem from “urbanization and climate change.”

In terms of flooding, waterways are eroding and not functioning as they should, McGowan said. When combined with non-permeable paved surfaces that exacerbate runoff and prevent water from infiltrating the ground and an overloaded sewer system, events like the March tornado/flooding occur.

Then there are the power outages, plaguing parts of Cleveland and cities like Lakewood intermittently through the spring and summer months on a now-yearly basis, cutting off people’s ability to cool their homes.

And that’s if they have any at all. Almost 1 in 10 homes in the Cleveland Metropolitan Statistical Area lacks air conditioning, which disproportionately affects children and elderly residents, according to the county.

“When you have homes with low levels of AC or AC that’s going out all the time because the power’s going out, then you don’t have climate-ready homes,” McGowan said.

Meanwhile, newly constructed housing may face a different challenge.

In April, a hailstorm clobbered Cleveland suburbs like Westlake and Solon, causing thousands of dollars of damage to roofs, siding and windows.

Current state building code does not require materials that can better resist such storms — and Ohio’s green building codes don’t meet modern standards for energy efficiency, Crain’s research showed.

This leaves it up to developers and owners who have to opt to apply those stricter standards for new buildings, or to those buyers and owners who can afford the upgrades in existing ones.

In Cleveland, a 2024 climate risk assessment found that the most vulnerable to weather conditions like extreme heat, poor air quality and flooding were located in census tracts within neighborhoods like Bellaire-Puritas, Broadway-Slavic Village, Clark-Fulton, Detroit Shoreway, Hough, Fairfax, Tremont and Stockyards.

This is in part due to the fact that many of those neighborhoods have a higher percentage of residents living below the poverty line, are age 65 or older or are disabled.

The latest version of the city’s climate action plan calls for making buildings, especially in these neighborhoods, more comfortable, healthy and energy-efficient.

To that end, the city is exploring incentives to promote energy and water efficiency in residential buildings and analyzing programs to help owners complete building retrofits for energy efficiency and decarbonization, said Sarah O’Keeffe, Cleveland’s Director of Sustainability and Climate Justice.

At the county level, McGowan said their action plan focuses on steering communities toward programs such as the federal Community Rating System or the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. While these programs typically require each community to apply, the county evaluates its communities every five years for the federal All-Hazards Mitigation Plan, a framework that identifies disaster risks and strategies to avoid them.

But if Northeast Ohio wants to capitalize on those plans and on its potential to appeal to people attracted to its proximity to freshwater, it needs better housing to reduce harm from the increasingly volatile climate.

What it would take to improve existing Northeast Ohio housing

1: It starts with one big-ticket item: the walls themselves

“The biggest impact that would improve a building’s performance and people’s comfort is interior and exterior insulation,” said Jason Burick, Design Director at Vocon.

Proper insulation can help combat extreme temperatures, keeping cool air in and heat out without having to run air conditioning or the heat for hours each day. Also, during a blackout, insulation can help maintain comfortable temperatures when those services are not available.

Insulation can be added by filling the wall cavity with closed-cell foam, rock-wool, dense-pack cellulose, or dense-pack fiberglass. For older walls with knob-and-tube wiring, foam insulation like Air-crete is fireproof and does not conduct electricity. But the goal for walls should be a minimum of R-20, a thermal rating that measures insulation’s ability to resist heat traveling through it.

2: Tightening the building envelope

Seal potential leaks where air is getting around the insulation. Notorious problem areas include where the first-floor framing comes in over the foundation, or leaving the flue open to a fireplace year-round.

3: Windows also need attention

High-performance window options can control how much heat is allowed through, enhancing the overall insulation.

“The idea is to build your house like a refrigerator, where you have as much insulation around the exterior as possible, have it completely sealed, and so you get almost no air infiltration,” said Burick.

4: The roof is also an important component

The roof is most exposed to the elements. A lighter-colored roof, of course, absorbs less heat, keeping a home cooler during times of high temperatures.

But the quality of a roof goes beyond regulating temperature.

In April, a hailstorm swept through parts of Greater Cleveland, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to roofs. Slate or faux slate could be a better option, said architect George Clemens, though it is also more expensive. Lower-cost options are impact-resistant shingles.

5: Protect your siding

Extreme weather also affects siding and windows, and a roof with an overhang will do more to mitigate damage than some more modern designs. It will divert rain, which could cause lasting damage with mold and rot.

“Water will defeat your first system,” Clemens said. “It will get through your siding, brick or stone at some point.”

To counteract this, walls can be improved with barriers that help a home shed water that gets past siding or shingles and block air infiltration like Tyvek Drainwrap or Benjamin Obdyke Hydrogap.

6: Give floodwater somewhere to go

Extreme rainfall that can damage walls can also create floods when it meets impervious surfaces like driveways and parking lots. To help minimize runoff, permeable pavers or French drains can be installed to absorb water into the earth or flow away from buildings.

Otherwise, in worst-case scenarios, water could flow into basements.

Depending on where a house is built, it can be more susceptible to floods, requiring municipal capital projects, some of which occurred in cities like Parma and Valley View.

7: Updating a home’s mechanical system can also help

An energy recovery ventilator uses outgoing air to pre-condition the temperature and humidity of incoming fresh air in buildings with tight envelopes and energy-efficient HVAC systems. Even pairing gas-fired furnaces with electric condensers for air conditioning can help.

Alternative energy sources, while more costly, can offer greater benefits, such as reduced reliance on the energy grid, including geothermal, solar and wind-powered solutions.

But these options can be costly. If it were affordable to modernize a home, more people would do it.

For some, a FHA Section 203(k) rehabilitation loan can be issued by nearly a dozen local banks to help with these upgrades.

However, only 20% of homes that have applied for a home improvement loan in Cleveland’s east side neighborhoods like Hough and Buckeye-Shaker have received approval, according to Michael Mogensen from Johns Hopkins University. Mogensen was hired by the city of Cleveland to lead a team of three to create a program to upgrade the homes most in need.

Beginning with a pilot program of up to five homes, the city is starting in east side neighborhoods.

The hope is to expand to 50 homes by November and up to 100 homes per year after that, with residents able to apply for assistance. However, the city is still working on the final criteria for the application and deciding who would manage such a program after the grant runs out in 2027.

Part of the mix will include the state of Ohio’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program, a no-cost, federally funded program.

For Northeast Ohio, CHN Housing Partners is the program administrator, assisting with home insulation, energy-efficient appliances and upgrades to hot water tanks, furnaces and plumbing.

Upgrades can result in “up to 43% of cost and energy savings for these homes,” said John Sarver, director of the energy services department at CHN Housing Partners. “They help the health and the homes of the clients.”

In all, CHN’s energy services department receives around 2,000 applications a year and completes an average of 5,000 tasks. The most common requests are for updated furnaces, hot water tanks and insulation.

But limitations do apply.

“We have the technology to make these improvements, but not the funding.” – John Sarver, CHN Housing Partners

“We have the technology to make these improvements, but not the funding,” Sarver said.

He points to rebate programs from utilities running dry, state and federal policies changing what is available year to year, maximum allocations per home, poor-quality homes needing help that exceeds funds, or disqualifying a home that has received some prior assistance.

Sarver said he would like to see the programs expand who is allowed to receive help.

Most of these programs are available only to those ranging from 175% to 300% of the poverty level, leaving middle-income homeowners with the bill if they want to make the same changes.

“They need to move the federal poverty line so we can assist more people,” Sarver said. “People are working and still struggling to get assistance in conservation measures.”

But any improvement is better than leaving the houses as-is, from both cost and comfort perspectives, said KC Petraitis, vice president of real estate at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.

“When you tighten envelopes, you get savings right away, especially if you don’t have new windows or energy-rated appliances,” Petraitis said.

CNP’s Middle Neighborhood Initiative has been revamping older homes in the city, modernizing them for new buyers. As a nonprofit and subsidized project, Petraitis said the homes don’t meet the highest green standards. But what they do implement goes a long way.

“When you start to math it out, it makes a lot of sense to do it,” Petraitis said. “While we don’t have the highest R-values, owners will save 75% on operations.”

Building new housing for a new climate:

When it comes to new housing in the face of an uncertain climate future, homes can be built to withstand the storm and efficient enough to remain affordably comfortable during cold snaps and heat waves. But who is responsible and what is required can be a black box.

Building codes are essentially a state issue. Coastal states have more modern energy codes.

Ohio’s green housing code falls in a middle ground. While it is not as advanced as many coastal states, it does go further than some of its Midwestern counterparts.

Navigating the regulations can be tricky when you add Cleveland regulations and rules, and the city’s need for more housing that will weather extreme climates.

The best way to get more climate-resilient housing? Experts say it is a mix of standards and incentives.

Housing standards for new builds:

The construction industry is governed by an alphabet soup of different building standards. To meet “green” standards, builders must use construction techniques that improve energy efficiency and support more responsible environmental stewardship.

Architects and green building experts broadly agree that the single greatest sustainability benefit in new construction is density.

“First and foremost, we are looking for urbanity,” said Alex Pesta, a partner at City Architecture based in Cleveland’s Larchmere neighborhood. “The best way that we can be stewards of the environment is to tap into the existing infrastructure.”

This means building in established neighborhoods, with existing water systems, power grids and roadways. And having more than one family living on the same piece of infrastructure, like an apartment building, is preferable, as they benefit from the same existing systems.

Programs like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED, one of the most recognized green building standards systems, issue grades for density.

Ohio building codes take frameworks such as LEED into account and occasionally update to adopt new standards. But green building standards experts say that the state of Ohio is falling behind.

Adoption of green standards is determined state by state, said Ben Evans, federal legislative director at the U.S. Green Building Council, developer and manager of LEED.

While some coastal states have already adopted the 2024 code, Ohio is operating under an amended 2018 International Energy Conservation Code that more closely reflects 2009 standards for residential buildings and an amended 2021 IECC code that mirrors 2016 standards for commercial buildings, such as multifamily housing.

And even if Ohio wanted to adopt building codes to standardize new housing, pressure from the federal government may discourage it from doing so.

In June, the Trump Administration called the most recent update of the IECC “unnecessary regulations and ineffective building codes,” claiming the standards could drive residential construction costs up by $9.2 billion per year compared to keeping to a 20-year-old building code.

But there is a cost to not elevating standards, too, said Evans, especially in states like Ohio, where high heating costs are passed down to residents who are stuck with the bill.

“It will hurt residents in the long run because you’re building housing stock that is just not affordable in the future,” Evans said. “It’s not going to be as energy efficient as it would be if it were built to that higher code, and you’re locking in higher energy bills for that house or building for decades.”

And the standards might be relaxed further. The Ohio Finance Agency, which backs up to $100 million in development annually for low-income housing credits, is debating whether to remove the requirement that all OHFA-funded low-income housing obtain certification from a green building rating system, such as HERS (Home Energy Rating System Index) or LEED.

An OHFA representative said inspectors would still continue to monitor projects for green requirements throughout their development and construction, but they won’t require certification.

OHFA has not made a final decision but published a second draft on Monday, open for public comment, after the first draft was published in May.

But climate experts say the move opens up a slippery slope.

“There will be no guarantee that the homes that OHFA is funding are anything better than code when it comes to energy efficiency,” said Krista Egger, a Vice President at Enterprise Community Partners.

“Building a home to code is the worst home that you’re legally allowed to build,“ she said.

But while more flexibility could help developers, they also can incur extra costs.

Paul Yankie, President of Green Building Consulting, has worked with the city of Cleveland and the State of Ohio on various green building policy initiatives and said that government internal administrative costs typically rose in states where certification isn’t required, as in Kentucky and Tennessee.

“It takes depth to know all the options and what they actually mean, and not to have unintended consequences,” Yankie said.

Housing incentives:

If higher standards aren’t in place, it is left to developers and builders to go above and beyond on their own.

One of the best ways to get developers to apply green building standards is through incentives.

The city of Cleveland ties a 15-year residential tax abatement to certification in its Green Building Standard Handbook, first published in 2009 and last revised in 2017. According to the handbook, to meet the standard, developers and homeowners had to be verified by a HERS-certified rater, a LEED Green Rater, or an equivalent.

These ratings have helped improve housing quality, said builder and developer Matt Berges, owner of Berges Home Performance.

“When it was initially presented, it was a big fight because builders didn’t want to do the extra work to meet those standards,” he said. “But it was such a good sales tool and had a huge impact on the housing stock.”

But as developers find the tax abatement less attractive due to caps on higher-priced homes, tying green building to the incentive may not be enough encouragement to build above code.

That’s if it continues at all. The city of Cleveland is currently evaluating the Green Building Standards Handbook, though it has not said when a new version will be available.

Instead, Cleveland’s big bet on climate-forward housing is with MMY US Inc., the modular housing manufacturer poised to begin building new homes on empty lots in Cleveland neighborhoods as early as 2027.

The future steel-built structures are promised to be certified LEED Platinum, the highest level of green building certification awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council, said Robin Bartram-Brown, chief executive of MMY US. To make that work, the homes will be externally insulated and include a crawl space.

But there is no guarantee that incentives to build new homes to higher efficiency standards will continue.

The federal government has cut rebate programs for homeowners and businesses to install energy-efficient utilities, such as the 30% rooftop solar tax credit for residential solar panels, which was eliminated in the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Donald Trump in 2025.

Elsewhere, Cuyahoga County and the city of Painesville were awarded in 2024 a $129 million federal climate pollution-reduction grant under the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, intended to fund clean energy projects. Cuyahoga County said that the grant has been under threat, though it is still in place, according to a representative from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The changing standards and incentives ultimately make it difficult to predict and finance future housing infrastructure.

“When you’re used to grant availability, it can be challenging when those programs have been paused and delay the work you’re trying to do,” said Evans.