Emergency Release for Fuel Aid Will Benefit Local Residents
WASHINGTON — Earlier this winter, Wayne D. Strickland had to make a tough choice. In order to have heat and hot water, he had to forgo paying other bills.
That was before Strickland, 47, received his winter fuel aid through the federally funded Low Income Heating Assistance Program, which helps residents who use oil, propane or kerosene. And even though the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Inc. gave him $500 in LIHEAP money to help pay his fuel bills from November to April, with frigid temperatures and increasing oil prices, the money is running out fast.
“I don’t have the thermostat up to 80 degrees or anything,” said Strickland, a North Redding resident who is unemployed because of a disability. “I’m very frugal.”
But Strickland probably won’t have to make that tough choice again this winter. President Bush announced the release of $200 million in emergency LIHEAP funds last week. Massachusetts received $12.3 million Wednesday, and the money is now being distributed by local agencies across the state.
“These badly needed emergency funds will directly assist low-income families, the elderly and disabled to cope with this very cold winter and increased home heating costs,” Gov. Mitt Romney said in a statement Wednesday.
Romney said the release of the emergency funds coupled with the regular, quarterly LIHEAP payment, which he expects to be about $70 million, should help 130,000 residents pay their heating bills.
Judy Brady, fuel assistance director for the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Inc., said she hopes to start distributing the funds Friday for clients in Lawrence, North Andover, Andover, Redding, North Redding and Methun. The amount of money each client receives is determined by a number of factors, including income level, number of people in the household, age or disability. People like Strickland could get up to $130 more because of the emergency aid.
“One thing I don’t have to worry about is that I have heat, even though it’s cold,” said Strickland, who covered his windows and doors with plastic sheets to keep the draft out of his small cottage. “If it wasn’t for fuel assistance, I’d probably be homeless.”
Brady has roughly 1,000 clients who use oil heat, and one or two who use propane or kerosene. The rest of her 6,000 clients are natural gas users, she said. Residents who heat their homes with natural gas or electricity are protected by a state moratorium; even if they can’t pay their utility bill, their heat will not be shut off. It’s the people who rely on propane, oil and kerosene who have to worry if they come up short on their fuel payment.
“It’s a crisis,” Brady said. “These people need the money. We don’t need anyone to freeze.”
Some of her clients have exhausted their LIHEAP funds; they have either had their heat shut off, or are close to it. Brady said she has also received a record number of new applications for LIHEAP; 1,015 people have applied so far, compared to the 1,800 applications she received for the entire season last year.
“We’ve been very busy here,” said Brady, who attributed the rise in applicants to the harsh winter weather and the shaky economy.
Brady has also seen an increase in the number of applicants who are employed. Of the 6,627 households served last year, almost half of the clients had jobs.
“We’re serving more of the working poor,” she said.
With the number of people requesting aid on the rise, Congressman Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, is pushing for the federal government to fund LIHEAP at the same amount, if not more, next year. For fiscal year 2002, the federal government set aside $1.7 billion in regular funding for the program, and $300 million in emergency aid. Meehan said the Bush administration wants to cut the regular fund by $300,000, but maintain the emergency fund at its current level.
The Senate has already passed an appropriations bill to fund LIHEAP at $1.95 billion, without a separate reserve of emergency funds. Now, the House has to vote on an appropriation for the program, which it should do in the first few weeks of February.
“In these difficult economic times, when family budgets are stretched to the nines paying for basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and medication, we must not forget that heat is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” Meehan said.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
