Eating or keeping the lights on. That is the choice Ward 8 resident Don Gardner was forced to make.

Gardner is praying that his application for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, will be approved before his power is turned off. He is behind on his bill because he was laid off from his job as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January.

“Over the last three or four months, I haven’t been able to give them [electric company] anything,” Gardner says. “I had to get food first and gas. I had to put the utilities to the side. Cable, I had that cut off, and I just have Wi-Fi.”

Gardner snuck in his application a month before the funding ran out, but not all District residents were so lucky.

LIHEAP is a national program funded by the federal government but administered by the states and D.C. This year, the funds allocated for the District ran out in March, while last year the funding depleted in June—a possible indicator of what is coming for the rest of the country. The entire LIHEAP team at the federal level was fired in early April. The future of the program is in limbo for states that still have funds left to give out; other state governments are unsure if they will continue to receive funds from the feds.

LIHEAP is a one-time regular energy assistance benefit that ranges from $250 to $1,800 and can go toward heating and cooling bills. The program can also be used as an emergency fund to prevent utility companies from shutting off consumers’ power. The D.C. Department of Energy and Environment administers the program in D.C.

A message on all utility bills in the District encourages customers to contact the D.C. Office of the People’s Counsel, a consumer advocacy government office, for help paying their bills. Kintéshia Scott is one of those consumer advocates.

because we’re seeing more and more people who are struggling on their bills,” Scott says.

Juan Torres opened his gas bill for January and February. The bill was $200, an “amazingly high” amount, Torres says.

He only uses gas for his stove and heating.

Torres lives in an apartment in Ward 1. He was laid off from his job with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in January, so now he collects unemployment. He says his gas bill makes up 15 percent of his income.

“I am lucky that I don’t have people that depend on me,” Torres says. “Because if I did, I know that I would have to make very different decisions on how I’m spending much. I wouldn’t be able to buy as much food as I would like, or if I had children, I would have to be very restricted with them.”

Washington Gas’ recent data from March indicates that 14 percent of their customers have overdue bills. Among low-income customers, 39 percent have outstanding bills.

When customers can’t pay their utility bills, Scott says the first step is to negotiate a plan with their utility company. Next, she refers customers to LIHEAP. Many people are unaware of the program, Scott says. But with no funding for the program, customers are left in the dark.

Older homes that haven’t been upgraded generally have higher energy bills, says Qëndresa Krasniqi , a senior research associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

“A lot of the households, particularly vulnerable households, Black households, low-income households, Latino households, folks in rural areas, folks in tribal areas, tend to live in houses that are older and therefore more inefficient,” Krasniqi says.

Rev. George Gilbert , of Holy Trinity United Baptist Church in Ward 7, says the church often points people to social service programs such as LIHEAP.

“The Black church has always had to address not just the spiritual needs of the community that they serve, but they also had to address the social needs that impacted the community that they serve,” Gilbert says.

That is how Gardner found out about LIHEAP. He says a member of his church, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, works for the DOEE and expedited his application.

“But I think about those who don’t have that connection, or don’t have that relationship with somebody who’s there like I did,” Gardner says. “So she was able to move things a little faster for me.”

In D.C., the program did not have enough funding to meet the demand. A DOEE analysis of fiscal year 2019 data shows that 26 percent of District residents are eligible for LIHEAP, but the program served 26 percent of those eligible people.

That is because the agencies that administer LIHEAP are usually underfunded. On top of that, those who administer LIHEAP do not have enough resources to get more people to participate, says Vivek Shastry , a senior research associate at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Administrative burdens are included in an analysis of LIHEAP in D.C. from March 2021.

“They’re supposed to keep their administrative costs low,” Shastry says. “So, the agencies that are administering these actually are underfunded themselves to be able to go out and increase enrollment for these programs.”

Gardner applied for LIHEAP online and over the phone. It took time to gather the correct paperwork and documentation for the process.

“There’s so many people in D.C. that need help,” Gardner says. “The caseload is vicious, and they have limited help, limited case managers.”

When LIHEAP applications were still open, Gilbert says DOEE was jammed with appointment requests.

“That is troubling, because many folks are trying to complete the online application from their phones,” Gilbert says. “They don’t have laptops, they don’t have computers, they don’t have tablets and so trying to do it from your phone can be frustrating.”

DOEE declined to comment, “due to ongoing issues with federal funding.”

The solution?

To combat high utility bills, the Office of the People’s Counsel is researching how to enforce a tiered ratepayer system that would charge different rates based on customers’ incomes: The more you make, the higher your bill. The OPC hired an affordability expert consultant to analyze rate structures from other states, Scott says.

“If you have more and more people who cannot afford their bills, then you have a segment of the rate class who is going to start paying more and more to help everybody else out,” Scott says. “I think our job is to look into ways to make sure that residential ratepayers can afford their bills and that we are not putting too much pressure on other ratepayers to help other people afford their bills.”

Pepco threatened to turn off Gardner’s electricity in April, but he remains positive it will stay on. Gardner was a contractor at HUD because he had experienced being unhoused, and now tries to advocate for those who are in similar situations. He can’t imagine living without the lights on.

“I’ve been there,” Gardner says. “I was outside and the only light I had was from heaven above, so I understand the difference.”

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