Suzette Foote's Long Island house was so poorly insulated last winter that she had to turn her thermostat up to between 80 and 90 degrees - and her house was still chilly.
"I was losing heat, and the cold air was coming in from the attic," she said.
And her energy bills? "Very high - too high," said Foote, a single mother who has lived in her North Woodmere home for 18 years.
So in July 2025, Foote sought help from the Long Island Regional Clean Energy Hub, run by Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Nassau County. The free program helps Long Island residents and businesses reduce their energy use, transition to clean energy sources and lower their heating and electric bills.
Shannon Fabiani, energy adviser with the Long Island Regional Clean Energy Hub, inspects a heat pump at the home of Suzette Foote in Long Island.
The program is part of New York state's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Signed in 2019, it is one of the nation's most aggressive climate laws, requiring a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 85% by 2050 from 1990 levels. It mandates 70% renewable energy by 2030, 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040. It directs 60% of benefits to most New Yorkers and 40% to disadvantaged communities.
Participants get one-on-one advising and up to $40,000 in subsidies for weatherization, heat pumps, solar and more. In 2025, the hub facilitated $785,000 in clean energy subsidies for residents of Nassau and Suffolk counties and the Rockaways.
"There are a lot of options for how someone can improve their energy use. A lot of the time, they don't know where to start, so we're there to help them," said Shannon Fabiani, a CCE energy adviser who worked with Foote.
Three months after Foote reached out to the hub, Foote had discounts totaling $115 off her monthly utility bills, and had received more than $20,000 in subsidies to insulate her attic, weatherize her house and install central air conditioning and two air source heat pumps.
"Now I leave the thermostat at 67 and the house is still warm," Foote said.
In the summer, the new central air system keeps her house comfortably cool. Before the improvements, the temperature in Foote's house rose so high it triggered her 16-year-old daughter's chronic disease, supraventricular tachycardia, which makes her heart beat abnormally fast in high temperatures and humidity. "With the heat, her heart would race away," Foote said.
Now the house remains cool in the summer. "It made a difference here," Foote said. "It's the best thing on earth."
