Weighed Down by Heating Bills

...The low bar on federal heating assistance doesn't take into account the recent precipitous rise in fuel prices, and the gap is leaving a whole new group of people exposed to the harsh elements of the market...

...Johnny really is a eater, and so I guess that's where I noticed it the most, just not having the money every day...

...It gets to my head...

...It's just over my budget," she said, her voice turning angry and desperate...

...In 1982, its first year of existence, LIHEAP got $1.875 billion from Congress...

...She boils it on her hot plate instead...

...I'm keeping it cooler than we normally do," he says, "just using the heater less...

...One was in the bathroom, where she tried to keep the girls clean by making baths out of hot plate-heated water mixed with cold from the tap...

...I'd rather deal with the electricity company," she said...

...There's smoke coming from your mouth," she said...

...In October the Department of Energy forecast that households heated by natural gas-about 55 percent of the nation's homes-would see an average 48 percent rise in heating costs this winter, from $730 to $1,080...

...Traci Hukill is a freelance writer in Monterey, California...

...There has to be some kind of guidelines, I guess," he says...

...My wife just had a cookie exchange," he says, "and some of the women are talking about $500 heating bills...

...The moratorium on shut-offs lasts from November 15 to March 15, and it applies only to those who meet the income requirements for LIHEAP Montana enacted a similar policy this year, also for the first time...

...States with bans on winter shutoffs generally limit that protection to the very neediest-the sick, the elderly, or those who meet dismally low income qualifications...

...Some got well over $200, $300, and really, their gas bill is getting along in that range...

...Sheila lives with seven children-four of her own, two great-nephews, and one great-niece...

...Nebraska has no law at all, only a toothless recommendation by the public utilities commission to not shut off heat when the temperature is below freezing...

...She had brought her hot plate and microwave upstairs to the bedroom because the kitchen was too cold to cook in...

...The gas is just so high," she said...

...Relatively speaking, New Mexico is sitting pretty this year...

...I talked with Sheila again several weeks after her gas had been turned back on...

...Sheila told me she kept three kids home from school for three days because they didn't have winter coats...

...In a season of rising energy costs and constricted social spending, stories like Robinson's are becoming more common...

...I've just been praying to God to get us through...

...Vicki Connelly, who directs the LIHEAP program on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, said news reports on rising fuel prices had spurred an early run on her northern Montana office...

...When it first came on I was happy and everything, but it's back to the worry again," she said...

...About a third of states forbid disconnections when the temperature drops below a certain level, but that can be a very low figure...

...And these are not Hearst Castle...

...Every time you make a payment arrangement and don't make it, bam, that's it...

...New Mexico hasn't always been such a model guardian of its neediest...

...When it comes to heating bills in cold places, people can get crushed beneath a burden of late fees, reconnection charges, and deposits that make already-high service bills truly insurmountable...

...There's people out here freezing...

...Some 15,000 Chicagoans went into December without natural gas for heat-50 percent more than last year...

...She feared she wouldn't be able to keep up with the payment plan, just like she hadn't been able to keep up with it last year, and that she'd wind up in an even deeper hole this time...

...In the last five years, requests for heating assistance in Montana have jumped 50 percent, and they're up 12 percent from last year, says Jim Nolan, the state's LIHEAP director...

...The bill came to $569- almost double what he'd paid last year...

...The state LIHEAP director Mike Kelly spoke to me on a day when the high was 7 and the low was minus 7. "I can guarantee you they still do shut-offs because I deal with those every day," Kelly said, "but they seem to be a little more lenient on allowing people to get their payments in...

...In December, lawmakers pinched out $2.161 billion-a mere $300-million increase to cover twenty-four years of inflation and rising fuel prices...

...This year we served half of that in the first month of taking applications...

...Instead, he's going to try to make his 150-gallon tank last the whole winter, which it normally doesn't...

...Robinson's income-$1,151 per month from Social Security-put him $15 over the cutoff...

...And then you're on the payment plan all over again...

...The heating crisis reveals a startling degree of callousness on the part of policy-makers and energy providers...

...Sheila said she's watching her energy consumption...

...No heating provider wants to be responsible for somebody freezing to death," says Ron Knutson, who heads North Dakota's LIHEAP program...

...That meant welcome heat and hot water-and eventually another onslaught of impossibly large bills...

...Something's got to give...

...I was just reading my disconnection notice on the lights," she said, "and if it's not one thing, it's another...

...Nor does he grouse about the fact that soon after he filled his tank, the price of heating oil dropped 20 cents a gallon...

...We usually go to Albertson's or Safeway just about every day...

...These are ordinary homes...

...Many of them had been disconnected since last spring, when the Illinois moratorium on utility shutoffs reached its annual expiration date...

...In Vermont, for example, it's 10 degrees...

...Her income is a little under $1,300 a month, and she gets about $500 a month in food stamps...

...Then around the first of October, as the air in Spokane was turning crisp, John Robinson had his heating oil tank filled...

...And especially days like yesterday or today they don't want to have their staff out shutting off when it's 10 degrees below zero...

...She pays $281 in rent for Section 8 housing...

...And it was a good allotment...

...They don't care...

...We first spoke on a day when the high in Chicago was 17 degrees and Sheila had two days to go until her gas was switched back on...

...The 7 percent of American homes reliant on heating oil, most of them in the Northeast, would average a 32 percent hit, from $1,180 to $1,550...

...And she doesn't boil water on the stove...

...Last year, we served some-where between 1,100 and 1,200 households," she said...

...The electricity was still on, so Sheila had three space heaters going...

...She can be reached at tracihukill@yahoo.com...

...Governor Bill Richardson led a push to direct surplus state funds (from gas and oil revenues, appropriately) back to citizens in the form of tax rebates and a $23 million boost to the LIHEAP program...

...That's not to say that power companies are merrily pulling the plug whenever someone is late paying a bill...

...And it costs a lot of money just to reinstate you...

...Meanwhile, the poorest Americans are falling hopelessly behind as mounting energy bills rapidly outstrip any assistance they might receive...

...They're finding out their gas bills are a little bit higher than what they were receiving for assistance," he says...

...As a result, LIHEAP serves just 15 percent of the thirty-two million Americans living at or below the program's eligibility threshold, leaving twenty-seven million of the poorest people unserved...

...He was turned down...

...But the mail had brought bad news from that quarter, too...

...She fretted over the fact that she had been looking everywhere but couldn't find a bag of hats and gloves that had been in the front closet last winter...

...Many states contribute nothing at all to LIHEAP, so New Mexico's contribution, which triples the amount of aid available, makes it a standout...

...Under the agreement she had signed in order to get the gas turned back on, she would need to pay off a $1,500 bill left over from last year, and a $675 deposit broken up into several installments, plus monthly bills ranging from $300 to $400...

...Robinson's not much of a complainer...

...Alaska prohibits disconnects only for the disabled and the seriously ill...

...Richard Trujillo, utilities administrator for the northern New Mexico town of Las Vegas, says some sticker shock has begun to set in for the people of his community, where temperatures dip to the single digits for much of the winter...

...She used to turn the oven on to warm up the kitchen, but she doesn't do that anymore...

...And this was after she had already received her $1,200 LIHEAP allotment for the year, so she would have to come up with all of it herself...

...Her gas was shut off last May...

...Robinson doesn't complain about his near miss...

...This is the first year the state's utility companies are barred from disconnecting delinquent customers in wintertime...

...Strapped, Robinson applied in November for federal aid through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps pay heating bills for those who qualify...

...Outside his Helena office, the wind chill is 4 below...

...The catch-up game is the bane of the broke...

...Which cuts into everything," he says...

...In Iowa, the ban kicks in when the mercury drops to 20 degrees-and then it applies only to LIHEAP recipients...

...Ten states have no laws at all on disconnects: California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, and Virginia...

...I got all these kids in this house, and they don't care...

...Robinson, a sixty-six-year-old retired truck driver who lives with his nineteen-year-old grandson, had it split up into three payments...

...To say that LIHEAP has not kept pace with the need would be a gross understatement...

...The kids are happy to get in the tub and soak up all the bubble bath I got at the dollar store, but I don't know what I'm going to do...

...One such customer is Sheila C, a forty-year-old Chicago native who did not want her last name published...