$9.2 Million Released to Help Heat Low-Income Homes
LIHEAP
The Eagle-Tribune
Bryan McGonigle
Boston University Washington News Service
9/12/06
WASHINGTON– Low-income families in Massachusetts and New Hampshire can expect a little more help in keeping warm next winter from the Bush Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The department released almost $9.2 million in contingency funds to Massachusetts Tuesday for energy assistance from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and almost $3 million to New Hampshire Monday from the program’s surplus funds.
“With this funding, the Bush Administration is helping those in need by ensuring their homes are kept warm during the winter months,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.
Almost five million low-income households across the country receive the energy assistance each year. The department released $600 million in assistance last winter to meet record-high fuel costs. The contingency aid to Massachusetts is part of more than $79 million provided to 14 states this week.
“As the cold weather arrives and temperatures begin to fall, these funds are essential to enable low-income families to heat their homes,” U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement Tuesday. Kennedy is the senior minority member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “No family should have to face the impossible choice of staying warm or paying their bills for food, rent or health care.”
U.S. Reps. Charles Bass, R-N.H., and Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., had written to President Bush urging him to release the program’s surplus funds to New Hampshire before they expire on Sept. 30, the final day of the fiscal year. That money will be available later this week.
“With the price of gasoline and home heating oil as high as it is,” Bradley said, “to have $3 million for the state over and above [what had previously been allocated] for next year is really good news.”
The $2.98 million from the surplus funds will bring New Hampshire’s total to almost $28 million and will assist an additional 4,500 families, Bradley said.
Last October, the U.S. Senate rejected two proposals to increase funds for the program. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch spoke out strongly against the rejection, saying that the state’s most vulnerable citizens would suffer as heating oil prices rose.
“It’s good that some funding is coming through,” Pamela Walsh, Lynch’s communications director, said Tuesday. “I think we’re going to need to see continued support for LIHEAP. We are a cold state, and oil prices continue to be extraordinarily high.”
New Hampshire’s Office of Energy and Planning contracts with six local community action agencies to provide the federal funds to eligible households – those with gross annual incomes under 60 percent of the state median. A household of four people is eligible if its gross annual income is under $35,798.
“We do not know what our final base grant funding is going to be,” said Celeste Lovett, fuel assistance program manager for the New Hampshire agency, “but starting off this year knowing that we have nearly $3 million in contingency funds is a big help.”
The money will be released to eligible New Hampshire households after Dec. 1, but the program has been taking applications since July. Lovett is encouraging everyone having trouble paying heating bills to contact their local community action agency now.
In Massachusetts, the program operates from Nov. 30 to April 30. The money is allocated to the Department of Housing and Community Development and is disbursed to eligible households through various non-profit agencies. Families are eligible if their gross annual income is no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, and the amount of assistance rises as that percentage falls. A family of four is eligible if the total gross income is less than $38,700.
“The need is great,” said Charles L. Lopiano, assistant director of the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council in Lawrence. There are about 7,200 families – 14,000 people – in Greater Lawrence who need the energy assistance, he said. “There was about $4.5 million in LIHEAP funds to the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council this year, and we’ve gone through it already.”
Bradley said he hopes this week’s boost in energy assistance grants is the start of a trend to address New England’s heating problems head-on and discard political bickering.
“LIHEAP funding is going to be a priority for all of us in the Northeast on a bipartisan basis,” he said. “We are working to increase LIHEAP funding as we did last year, and we will do so next year as we did this year.”
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