More Families Face Loss of Heat With Public Aid Scarce
By JOHN W. FOUNTAIN
CHICAGO, Dec. 4 — The living room of Anna Brown's wood-frame house on the city's West Side is toasty these days. The rest of the house is cold.
Mrs. Brown, 75, keeps two electric space heaters in her living room during the day. Her natural gas was disconnected two years ago when prices soared and she fell behind in her payments. So she has erected the seasonal curtain of thick plastic that seals off the living room from the rest of the house, and has resigned to settle in for another long Chicago winter warmed by the red glow of space heaters.
In Chicago alone, the number of customers without natural gas service is 10,000, according to People's Energy, the utility company that supplies natural gas to nearly one million customers in the Chicago area.
With the economy stagnant, social service agencies say people are seeking help in paying their heating bills earlier this year and the coming winter is likely to pose a chilling bind. It is expected to be colder than last winter, the price of gas is rising and the Bush administration has proposed cutting $300 million from the $1.7 billion federal program that provided energy subsidies for needy families in the last fiscal year.
Such a cut would mean that 438,000 fewer families received aid from the program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helped 4.5 million families last year, said Mark Wolfe, spokesman for the National Energy Assistance Director's Association, an education and policy group for directors of the program in states and on Indian reservations.
Michael Musante, a spokesman for a federal agency involved in the program, said of the proposed $300 million reduction: "You could call it a cut if you like. We're saying its a return to the normal level of funding that we found in 2001."
Mr. Musante said there was a $300 million emergency contingency fund that would be available to states for help in extreme weather of all types as well in cases in which energy supplies are disrupted or there are huge spikes in energy prices. He said there was also a supplemental fund of $300 million that could be tapped for energy assistance. States must request this money, he said.
Any cut in the budget of the federal program for energy assistance would have to be approved by Congress. Under the proposed reduction, the number of households served in New York State would probably shrink by 80,000, to 585,000, Mr. Wolfe said. That would be if, as projected, $38 million was cut from the state's $212 million in federal energy assistance money, he said.
In Illinois, the proposed cuts, would mean that 35,000 fewer families would receive assistance.
In New York City, the cost of heat is included in most rents, said Carol Abrams, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Housing and Preservation. But that does not mean residents do not have heating problems. From Oct. 1 to Nov. 26, the housing agency issued violations to 2,570 apartment buildings for insufficient heat, Ms. Abrams said, compared with 2,123 for the same period last year. Of the 2,570 violations this season, either the city or the owner restored heat to all the buildings.
Whether the demand for heating assistance will actually turn out to be higher this year is not clear. But in Minnesota, local groups that administer the aid program said that more people — many of whom have lost their jobs — were asking for help earlier than usual, despite relatively warm weather.
"We are seeing a lot more new applicants this year, especially early in the season," said Anthony Spears, chief financial officer for Community Action of Minneapolis Inc., a nonprofit group that distributes the energy-assistance money.
In the last 45 days, Mr. Spears said his agency had processed 4,000 applications, nearly double the number handled in the same period last year.
Officials in Detroit have also seen a growing need. Kathleen Walgren, executive director of the nonprofit Heat and Warmth Fund, said that since the agency began its early emergency program on Nov. 1, it had helped 330 households, mostly in Detroit, where service was shut off, paying $144,836 in utility bills. Mrs. Walgren said several hundred others had already inquired about help.
In Chicago and some other Illinois cities, officials say, state money to restore service to households that have been disconnected is already exhausted for the winter.
With almost every state and city facing major budget cuts, it may be difficult to use public money to make up for any federal spending cuts.
Last week, community activists in Chicago demonstrated outside People's Energy as well as the mayor's office, demanding that the gas to homes that had been disconnected for nonpayment be restored.
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