MSNBC, November 25, 2007: A feeling of warmth.
Home heating costs are a burden for everyone this winter, but they۪re especially hard on the region۪s poor.
The Give A Christmas program may evoke images of toys for children, but the truth is, a lot of the money donated by readers of The Intelligencer goes to save families from eviction, hunger or cold.
Heat, in fact, was the second most pressing need for struggling Bucks and Montgomery County families last year. The area agencies that administer Give A Christmas distributed $18,259 last year toward heating oil, gas and electric bills more than 16 percent of all money raised by the fund in 2006.
That need is expected to remain high this year, as heating costs are projected to rise in the area and across the country.
Home heating oil and propane prices have hit record highs for the past six weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Home heating oil costs about one-third more this year than it did last year, rising from about $2.40 last year to $3.21 this year, according to department statistics. Propane has risen from about $1.95 last November to $2.41 this year.
At the same time, the price of gasoline has gone up about 39 percent, from $2.23 to $3.11.
As usual, people who live paycheck to paycheck are being hit hard by the increases.
Indian Valley Opportunity Center social worker Lisa Dang said the Souderton agency gets calls from poor people during the winter when their oil tanks are empty and they have no money for the delivery. Heating-oil companies won۪t come out to put $50 worth of oil in the tank, and when a family is living hand to mouth, they struggle to get the $300 or more required to arrange for a delivery, she said.
Even those whose homes are heated by natural gas, which is facing smaller increases, can be haunted by high heating bills,
especially if their homes are not properly sealed against the weather.
That۪s the situation one area mother found herself in last year.
Earlier this year, weatherization work paid for by the Bucks County Opportunity Council helped the 34-year-old Silverdale woman and her two children beat the drafts that drove her heating bills over $400 last winter.
“It was absolutely killing me,” said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld. “Even with the heat set up to 95 degrees, the highest it would go, I couldn۪t get the house above 65 degrees.”
Her 127-year-old house in the small borough was about as airtight as a sieve.
Cold air wafted from the basement and seeped through cracks between the house and its foundation, she said.
She called the Opportunity Council and got in touch with its weatherization program. The local need for home improvements to weatherize houses was so great that she was on a waiting list for two months. When it was her turn, though, she got more than she hoped for.
The council was able to insulate her basement ceiling to stop the cold air from seeping into the house. Foam sealer was sprayed around the perimeter of the house, where it meets the foundation, to seal those leaks.
The materials the council invested in her home will pay for themselves through energy savings within three years, said David Ford, outreach coordinator for the council.
The work was done in April. She noticed the results over the summer, when she rarely had to use her air conditioner.
“The weatherization was to keep my heating bills down, but it worked on the electric bills, too,” she said. “It was at least $50 less a month this summer than last summer. And my house is so warm now, it۪s incredible.”
The woman, whose sons are 14 and 4, is in the process of being divorced from her husband. She is taking as many classes as she can at Bucks County Community College, and hopes to transfer to Drexel University next year to finish studying to become an X-ray technician.
To everyone who is considering donating to the Give A Christmas program, this woman says, “Please do” and “Thank you.”
“The people that the Opportunity Council works with are families who are struggling. It۪s situational poverty,” she said. “I think a lot of people think that people living below the poverty level are lazy people who, if they would work more, wouldn۪t be in that situation. That۪s just not the case.
“Everyone I۪ve met through the council۪s programs is someone who is struggling to get back on their feet. They۪ve been displaced; they۪re getting training for new careers. They don۪t want to be in this position. They۪re not looking for a hand out; they۪re just looking for a hand up.”