Sunday, September 26, 2004

Utility Help

Poor juggle bills as heat aid dries up

Home energy program serves one of every seven families eligible for help with utilities

By Ronald J. Hansen and Melvin Claxton / The Detroit News

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DETROIT — There are more than 16,000 low-income Detroiters currently without electricity because they couldn’t pay their bills.

Collectively, they owe $38 million.

There are another 180,000 city residents who pay more than 40 percent of their income for light and heat. And 217,000 more spend between 11 percent and 16 percent.

Most experts say utility bills shouldn’t consume more than 6 percent of household income.

The problems faced by low-income Detroiters are what the federal government hoped to avert when it created a program 22 years ago to help poor families with their utility bills. But the $1.8 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly known as LIHEAP, receives less funding today than when it started in 1982.

Energy costs have soared more than 50 percent since 2002. Yet funding for LIHEAP and other energy assistance programs grew 7 percent under the Bush administration, barely matching inflation.

As a result, the home energy program serves one of every seven eligible families nationally. The program, which provided assistance to 7 million families when it began 22 years ago, now helps only 5 million.

The financial aid each family gets is also falling. In the past three years, the average assistance to families dropped from 18 percent of their utility bills to 14 percent.

With two-thirds of families receiving home energy assistance earning less than $8,000, energy costs can devastate their budgets. Families the program serves spend three times as much of their income on energy costs as middle-income families, according to a survey by the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state LIHEAP administrators.

The 2003 survey highlights the impact of funding shortfalls on the poor.

The survey found:

* One of every four people the program serves reported they didn’t buy medicine or pay rent or their mortgage at least once because of energy bills.

* One of every five said they missed meals because they used food money to pay a utility bill.

* At least 30 percent said they used their stove for heating at some point.

* More than 50 percent of renters and 38 percent of homeowners reported borrowing from a friend to pay energy bills.

Life-or-death matter

Flat funding for LIHEAP and higher energy prices have left more of the poor struggling to pay their utility bills. Disconnection numbers help tell the story.

In Wisconsin, 25,000 homes have had their power turned off already this year and another 55,000 are threatened, utility company records show.

Nearly 30,000 Iowans have had power involuntarily disconnected this year, up 17 percent in the past two years, state records show.

In extreme cases, assistance with utility bills can literally be a matter of life and death for the poor.

For years, Quinsana Pearson helped others in need.

But there was little help for the 54-year-old Cleveland woman when she couldn’t pay her electric bill. Her low-paying job in a home for the mentally disabled left her with too little money.

In March 2002, her power was disconnected. Two months later, the candles Pearson used to light her home ignited a fire that killed her.

When Angela Maria Ritchie’s power was disconnected for nonpayment in August, she lit her low-rent Des Moines, Iowa, apartment with candles.

The candles sparked a fire that killed her 3-year-old daughter, Kimberly Jarnagin, and left her and an infant son critically injured. Such incidents are hardly isolated cases.

Extreme heat, cold

Over the years, the home energy program has focused primarily on aiding the poor with their winter heating bills. But in no state do the funds cover everyone who needs assistance.

Maine came the closest, offering 23 percent discounts on heating bills to 68 percent of their applicants, according to 2001 figures, the latest year for which complete numbers are available.

Michigan covered 30 percent of its eligible families and offered an average $251 a year in aid, an 18 percent discount.

Warm-weather regions typically offer little help.

Federal funding in Texas, for example, covers fewer than 2 percent of eligible homes. In the most populous state, California, fewer than 4 percent of its eligible families are covered. Increasingly, though, lawmakers have seen that extreme heat is far more dangerous than extreme cold.

Over the past decade, the U.S. averaged 237 heat-related fatalities each year, according to a 2003 report by the National Weather Service. That is nearly 10 times the number of people who died each year from extreme cold.

Annual injuries follow the same pattern.

Even so, the number of homes receiving cooling assistance nationwide fell 35 percent in 2003, and two states, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, ended it altogether.

Funds fall short

Because of limited federal funding, most states are forced to use other funds to help offer energy assistance. Collectively, states, local governments and utility companies supply an additional $2 billion annually for energy relief.

But these funds still leave many needy families without assistance.

In fact, eight states don’t offer any additional funding for energy assistance.

Among those states is Louisiana, a state with utility bills consistently among the highest in the country. Long, hot summers are punctuated with sweltering humidity.

The state is also among the poorest in the nation. The poverty rate in Louisiana was 53 percent higher than the national average.

Nowhere is that problem more visible than East Carroll Parish, where 40 percent of the 9,000 residents are impoverished, state records show.

Still, just 70 families are receiving assistance in East Carroll Parish, said Rosie Brown, who heads the local Community Action Agency, a social service organization. Statewide, just 6 percent of the eligible households get energy assistance.

Many who live in the dilapidated houses and rusting trailers that dot East Carroll Parish try to cope with the unrelenting heat by covering their windows with aluminum foil.