LIHEAP Funding Warms Up As Winter Approaches
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 -Ruth Mattheson, 84, remembers how difficult the Depression was.
The Lawrence resident recalls when $1 bought a bag full of groceries and when families watched every penny they spent. She remembers when homes were heated by wood and coal stoves, and keeping warm was a great concern.
“There were no storm windows and we had to dress in several layers to keep warm,” she said.
Years have come and gone since the Depression and while technology has advanced the standard of living, there are still people who are worried about keeping warm this winter, as Mattheson did so many years ago. They will have to depend on energy assistance programs, such as the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, to pay their heating bills.
No one disputes that the assistance program is crucial, but the question that remains is whether there will be enough funding to go around, especially as the energy supply is squeezed and prices soar.
Mattheson, who lives at the Berkeley Retirement Home in Lawrence, does not have any anxieties this year about heating but said if she were still living in her house she would be worried.
In fact, the elderly community and low-income families are at high-risk during the cold months. A nationwide survey of 1,100 energy assistance recipients found that 32 percent either did not fill prescriptions or did not take full doses of medication due to escalating energy bills. The study, conducted by the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, an educational and policy organization for state and local directors of the program, also found that 16 percent of those surveyed said they became ill as the result of a cold home.
The federal assistance program allocates a block grant to every state, and the funds are then administered locally. In Massachusetts, the Department of Housing and Community Development oversees the state program, and local agencies process requests for assistance.
The program, which runs from November through April, offers financial assistance for home heating to renters or homeowners whose annual household income is less than twice the federal poverty income level, which is determined by the number of family members. A household of four has to earn less than $38,700 to be eligible for assistance.
Facing the Cold
The phone has been ringing off the hook at the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council, Inc., the Merrimack Valley’s local agency in charge of distributing the heating funds.
When callers can’t get through to the council by phone, program director Judy Brady said, they have been coming in and the waiting room is filled with 20 to 25 people at a time.
“People are concerned and they are considering their options early,” she said.
Last year, nearly 8,000 people in the area received energy assistance, Brady said, and the demand for heating assistance will increase. While it is hard to guess the exact figure, she said 3,000 recipients from last year have already recertified and she expects to hear from most of the others. In addition she said she thinks the office will process more than 2,000 new applications.
“We are grateful for (the funding) we get,” Brady said. “But it’s not enough and we need it up front.”
Recipients’ benefit levels can’t be determined until the overall program funding is determined, which leaves Brady and her staffers “hanging with a lot of paperwork.” And if additional funds trickle down from the federal appropriations process during the winter season, it adds up to more paperwork and to funds that some recipients can’t use.
For example, Brady said, if an extra $50 is doled out to people mid-season, they would have a hard time getting an oil company out to their house for that small amount.
Brady said she thinks she will be able to serve everyone at least once with the current funding levels, but that might mean 150 gallons having to last an entire season.
State lawmakers have been working with the local agencies, Brady said, to get information to residents. An energy assistance forum, scheduled for Oct. 25 at the Lawrence Public Library, is one of several meetings around the state hosted by the Department of Telecommunications and Energy. She said the discussion about conservation, assistance and energy budgeting would be beneficial to recipients.
Washington lawmakers heat up
Since 2000, the government has annually spent an average of $1.9 billion for the energy assistance program, which dates back to 1982. Last year, the funding broke the $2 billion mark for the first time since 1985, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.
As part of the Energy Policy Act signed by President Bush in August, up to $5.1 billion can be spent for 2006, but so far, Congress only plans to fund $2 billion.
A bipartisan group of senators tried to attach a funding increase to the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill this week, but it was procedurally blocked on Thursday and never made it the floor for a vote. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Maine’s Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, led this second attempt by legislators to appropriate the remaining $3.1 billion.
In the beginning of October, Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Edward Kennedy proposed a similar amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Even with half of the Senate’s support, it was procedurally blocked by Republican leadership.
But as lawmakers try to work it out, the average family in Massachusetts still faces a winter heating oil bill that is $378 more than last winter’s average cost of $1,200, according to a recent Energy Information Administration report.
Even before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita strained already tight natural gas and oil supplies, energy was a source of concern. The oil markets flirted with record highs all summer before finally surpassing the $60 a barrel mark and gas prices have been steadily rising.
Damage from hurricanes shut down seven refineries in the Gulf Coast area, reducing the nation’s energy capacity by 11 percent or 1.9 million barrels a day, Kennedy said.
At an energy conference in September, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said that the energy assistance program is one that works. “It has real meaning in the lives of people who are eligible and need to take advantage of it,” she said.
“We refuse to abandon families, especially seniors, who won’t be able to afford to keep the heat on,” Kerry said in a statement on Wednesday. “The administration’s own Energy Information Administration knows this problem is real. Governors across the country see this. So why are the White House and the Republican leadership in Congress going out of their way to do nothing? What’s it going to take for the White House to act?”
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