LIHEAP helps households
By Senator Edward M. Kennedy
The soaring price of gasoline is on everyone’s mind, but for many the rising price of other types of energy has become equally as nightmarish. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, nearly 100,000 households in Massachusetts are threatened by electric utility shut-offs because of unpaid energy bills.
Among our most effective initiatives to protect families from such costs is the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which Congress established in the 1980s as a safety net to protect families from a heating crisis during the winter.
A recent survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that of the households benefiting from LIHEAP, 22 percent included young children, 31 percent included a disabled person, and 32 percent included an elderly person. In Massachusetts, more than 45,000 households with an elderly family member receive assistance under the program.
LIHEAP works, and it’s a life-saver for the five million households it serves each year. But its effectiveness has been undercut in recent years by the rise in energy prices and the shamefully inadequate funding for the program. LIHEAP is being nickel and dimed by a White House that refuses to budget sufficient funds for the program, with the result that it now serves less than one in five eligible households.
Many living on fixed incomes don’t have savings to rely on, and are forced to make impossible choices between energy or food or health care. A report by the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program and Citizens Energy found that when household energy costs go up, money spent on food goes down.
Dr. Deborah Frank of the Pediatric Department at Boston Medical Center and other experts in the field have documented that fuel assistance programs like LIHEAP are effective in reducing this “heat or eat” effect. It’s unconscionable that anyone should be at serious risk of illness because of the lack of heat or food. But that’s precisely what happens when we ignore struggling families who can’t afford to pay for the heat they need.
Action is needed now to prevent immense and needless hardship for deserving families across America in the coming winter. Instead of ignoring this coming crisis, Congress should act quickly to pass additional emergency funding for LIHEAP and dare the President to veto it. No one should be left without the assistance they need to heat their homes. By signing the bill, President Bush will demonstrate the kind of “compassionate conservatism” he promised the American people eight years ago.
To contact Senator Kennedy, call 1-202-224-4543 or email him by going to http://kennedy.senate.gov/senator/contact.cfm.
Editor's Note: Elder Services is grateful for everything Senator Kennedy has done for seniors and wishes him all the best.
