The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has no funds for this winter season due to the government shutdown. LIHEAP is a $4 billion program assisting nearly 6 million low-income households. The program is administered by each state, which normally would begin to receive the federal funds at the beginning of November. Heating costs are rising faster than the overall inflation rate and one in six homes is behind on energy bills.
However, unlike the cuts to the SNAP food assistance program, there is no network of food banks or soup kitchens to help people with heating bills. The few local charities involved in heating assistance have traditionally helped families that do not qualify for the federal program. Many localities have laws preventing the cut-off of utilities during the coldest months, but these restrictions do not apply for homes that use fuel oil or propane for heat, which are very common energy sources in the Northeast.
Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told reporters that even if the shutdown were to end this week, the funds would not reach the states until early December. Wolf warned that if the shutdown continues, the elderly will be afraid to use heating, people will fall through the cracks, pipes will freeze, and people will die. In the state of Maine, one man was prevented from being discharged from a hospital because he has no heat in his house.
In April the Trump administration indicated that it wanted to terminate the LIHEAP program and fired all of the workers at the Department of Health and Human Services who were involved in the program.
