Philadelphia Inquirer, April 1, 2008: LIHEAP aid ends, leaving many without help
By Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG – Low-income Pennsylvanians facing shutoff notices from their utility companies won’t be able to turn to the state for help until winter.
That’s because the Department of Public Welfare shut down its heating assistance program, LIHEAP, on March 21 despite having a $13 million balance.
State officials said they wanted to ensure they could begin next winter with money on hand, given the price of oil and the vulnerable state of the economy.
Advocates for the poor say such an approach unnecessarily and unfairly puts low-income families at risk. Utilities are barred by law from shutting off service to most low-income customers from December through March, but that deadline expires today.
“The need for LIHEAP doesn’t magically end on April 1,” said Jonathan Stein, general counsel for Community Legal Services in Philadelphia. “In fact, it becomes greater.
“There is a coming flood of post-April 1 terminations following the winter moratorium, and following the pressures low-income families are feeling as they deal with the emerging recession and wages and income that have been frozen for years,” Stein said.
In Philadelphia, between 70,000 and 75,000 Philadelphia Gas Works customers could receive shutoff notices, said Steven Hershey, PGW’s vice president for regulatory and external affairs.
Pennsylvania’s LIHEAP program is fully funded by the federal government, and traditionally runs from November through March – although it has been extended many times in the past due to bad weather.
DPW spokeswoman Stacey Witalec said that from year to year, the state does not know how much, or when, the federal government will allocate money for the program.
As as result, the department historically has carried over balances ranging from $3 million to $20 million.
“We understand where the advocates are coming from, and we understand their concerns,” Witalec said. “And we share those same concerns. But we extend those concerns to the fall; we want to make sure that there’s money there when we start off the next season in November and it’s freezing.”
Over the winter, Pennsylvania received roughly $180 million from the federal government, Witalec said.
She said the department would try to limit the number of people affected by LIHEAP’s March 21 end, although it could not guarantee that everyone affected would be spared shutoff.
She said that utilities may send the department names of people who received termination notices before March 21, and that the state can then cross-reference those names to see whether they had received LIHEAP aid this year. If they had not, she said, the state will provide grants to help pay their bills.
The problem, utilities and advocates for the poor say, is that termination notices don’t go out all at once. They are staggered throughout the winter and spring, so there will be people who didn’t receive notices before March 21 and who won’t qualify for assistance.
“That money should be used to help the people who are in pain now,” said Lance Haver, Philadelphia’s consumer advocate.
He added that by carrying over a balance, the state is sending the federal government the message that it does not need all the money it is allocated.
“It creates this illusion that we don’t need that much money to run the program,” Haver said. “And that couldn’t be further from the truth.”