Steve Sowders: The Solar and Energy Loan Fund enables low-income property owners to get loans for roofing work

BY Kevin Mims, — 07/12/2020

The Invading Sea released a series titled “The Business of Climate Change,” which highlights the climate views of businessmen and women throughout the state. This episode talked about how SELF partners with companies to provide financing for sustainable home improvements, like roof loans, for low- and middle-income residents, featuring Steve Sowders, the sales manager of Westfall Roofing.

The article can be found here.

Here is an excerpt that features SELF:

Westfall Roofing partners with the Solar and Energy Loan Fund, a nonprofit green bank that provides financing for sustainable home improvements to low- and middle-income residents. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship?

We do a lot of work with them. They’re crucial in helping a lot of our customers get approved for a new roof that they ordinarily would not be able to afford.

And it’s just gratifying because those are the most grateful customers because whether it’s a roof that’s aged, whether it’s their insurance company forcing them to replace their roof, whatever the case is, they need a roof. They don’t have $12,000, $15,000, $20,000 sitting around and they have nowhere else to go and SELF is able to provide options for them that not a lot of people are able to do.

From your point of view, how well is the increasing demand for financing these improvements being met?

There’s not a lot of options like SELF out there, I’ll tell you that. There’s a lot of financing companies in the home-improvement industry, but they all have pretty similar restrictions and guidelines where SELF is able to give options to homeowners when they’re getting declined everywhere else.

So, yeah, to answer your question, there’s a lot of financing options out there but there’s just not a lot of options like SELF.

The article can be found here.

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