Jacqueline Chapman is a retired school aide who relies on a $630 monthly Social Security check to get by. She was navigating the loss of her federal food aid benefits when she learned the assistance she receives for heating her Philadelphia apartment may also be at risk.
“I feel like I’m living in scary times. It’s not easy to rest when you know you have things to do with limited accounts, limited funds. There isn’t too much you can do,” said Chapman, 74.
Chapman relies on the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps millions of low-income households pay to heat and cool their homes.
With temperatures beginning to drop in areas across the United States, some states are warning that funding for the program is being delayed because of the federal government shutdown, now in its fifth week.
The anticipated delay comes as a majority of the 5.9 million households served by the federally funded heating and cooling assistance program are grappling with the sudden postponement of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries. Money is running out for other safety net programs as well and energy prices are soaring.
“The impact, even if it’s temporary, on many of the nation’s poor families is going to be profound if we don’t solve this problem,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state directors of the program. Commonly called LIHEAP, it serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and federally recognized tribes.
“These are important income supports that are all potentially heading toward a cliff at the same time,” Wolfe said. “And I can’t point to a similar time in recent history where we’ve had this.”
States are warning applicants about a funding delay
LIHEAP, created in 1981, assists families in covering utility bills or the cost of paying for fuels delivered to homes, such as home heating oil. It has received bipartisan congressional support for decades.
States manage the program. They receive an allotment of federal money each year based on a formula that largely takes into account state weather patterns, energy costs and low-income population data.
While President Donald Trump proposed zero funding for the program in his budget, it was anticipated that Congress would fund LIHEAP for the budget year that began Oct. 1. But since Congress has not yet passed a full 2026 spending bill, states have not gotten their new allocations yet.
Some states, including Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Minnesota, have announced their LIHEAP programs are being delayed by the government shutdown.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration said it cannot front the $200 million-plus in federal LIHEAP aid it had expected to help pay heating bills for some 300,000 low-income households. It is predicting payments will not go out until at least December, instead of November, as is customary.
Minnesota’s energy assistance program is processing applications but the state’s Department of Commerce said federal LIHEAP dollars will likely be delayed by a month. The agency does not plan to pay recipients’ heating bills until the shutdown ends.
“As temperatures begin to drop, this delay could have serious impacts,” the agency said. The program services 120,000 households, both homeowners and renters, that include many older adults, young children and people with disabilities.
Connecticut has enough money to set aside to pay heating bills through at least the end of November or December, according to the group that helps administer LIHEAP. But the program faces uncertainty if the shutdown persists. Connecticut lawmakers are considering covering the cost temporarily with state budget reserves.
“The situation will get much more perilous for folks who do need those resources as we move later into the heating season,” said Rhonda Evans, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Community Action. More than 100,000 households were served last year.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the assistance program, blamed the federal shutdown and the delay in LIHEAP payments on congressional Democrats and said the Trump administration is committed to reopening the government.
“Once the government reopens, ACF will work swiftly to administer annual awards,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within HHS. The spokesperson did not directly answer whether the timing could be affected by the administration’s earlier decision to fire workers who run the LIHEAP program.
Wolfe, from the group that represents state program directors, predicts there could be delays into January. He noted there are questions over who will approve states’ program plans and how the money will be released when it becomes available.
“Once you’ve fired the staff, things just slow down,” he said.
Low-income families face mounting obstacles
Chapman, the retired school aide, may be eligible for a program through her gas utility to prevent being shut off this winter. But the roughly 9% of LIHEAP recipients who rely on deliverable fuels such as heating oil, kerosene, propane and wood pellets, typically do not have such protections.
Electric and natural gas companies are usually regulated by the state and can be told not to shut people off while the state waits to receive its share of the LIHEAP money, Wolfe said. But it is different when it involves a small oil or propane company, fuels more common in the Northeast.
“If you’re a heating oil dealer, we can’t tell that dealer, ‘Look, continue to provide heating oil to your low-income customers on the possibility you’ll get your money back,’” Wolfe said.
Mark Bain, 67, who lives in Bloomfield, Connecticut, with his son, a student at the University of Connecticut, started receiving financial assistance for his home heating oil needs three years ago.
“I remember the first winter before I knew about this program. I was desperate. I was on fumes,” said Bains, who is retired and relies on income from Social Security and a small annuity. “I was calling around to my social services people to find out what I could do.”
He has been approved this year for $500 in assistance but he has a half tank of oil left and cannot call for more until it is nearly empty. By that point, he is hoping there will be enough federal money left to fill it. He typically needs three deliveries to get through a winter.
Bains said he can “get by” if he does not receive the help this year.
“I would turn the heat down to like 62 (degrees) and throw on another blanket, you know, just to get through,” he said.
Politics8 years ago