Just in time for winter, lawmakers approve utilities assistance 
Illinois lawmakers approved funding this week to help low-income families pay their heating bills this winter, narrowly averting a potential humanitarian crisis.
The program, known as LIHEAP, was caught up in the state’s protracted budget impasse until social service agencies pleaded for help, although many have already turned people away for lack of funds.
The Illinois Senate unanimously approved the $165 million for LIHEAP on Dec. 7 after the Illinois House passed the same bill the previous week with only one “no” vote. The funding was part of a larger appropriation for a handful of other programs like lottery payouts and local government services.
LIHEAP is short for “Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program,” and the program is jointly funded by the federal government and a surcharge on the utility bills of customers across the state. The money is collected by the state in a special fund and typically administered by county-level social service agencies.
Sharmin Doering, executive director of the Sangamon County Community Resources Department, says that about 30 percent of a typical low-income family’s income goes to utilities, compared with between four and 10 percent of income among middle-income families.
LIHEAP offers eligible families a stipend to lower their utility bill. To be eligible, household income can’t exceed 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which is a sliding scale based on family size. For example, 150 percent of the poverty level for a family of four is $36,375 per year, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Last winter, Sharmin Doering’s department served 5,056 Sangamon County households with LIHEAP funds. If the state funding hadn’t been approved, she estimates her department would have had to turn away about one-third of those families, which works out to about 1,685 households. She adds that the need for LIHEAP is growing because the percentage of people in Illinois living below the poverty line is increasing.
Even with the state funding restored, however, Doering says her department can only offer benefits to about 40 percent of eligible households. By state law, agencies must prioritize LIHEAP funds first to senior citizens and people with disabilities, second to households with children under age five, and finally to the rest of the eligible population.
Because LIHEAP isn’t paid out of the state’s General Revenue Fund, from which the majority of budget appropriations are made, the program has little connection to the overall state budget. Social service groups which administer the program are at a loss to explain why the Illinois General Assembly didn’t appropriate the money sooner.
“This really doesn’t resonate, unfortunately, until there’s a loss of lives,” said Harold Rice, president and CEO of the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County (CEDA). Rice and representatives from other social groups visited Springfield on Dec. 2, urging lawmakers to save the program before households in need would be at risk of freezing.
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the bill on Dec. 7, shortly after its passage in the Senate. Speaking to reporters at the Illinois Statehouse on Dec. 2, Rauner referred to the bill as a compromise and an accomplishment.
The governor has previously forbidden Republican legislators from voting for several bills he opposes, using as leverage sizeable campaign donations and the promise of a primary opponent for any legislator who defies him. However, Rauner allowed Republican legislators to vote for this spending and a handful of other relatively small appropriations earlier this year. That points to an effort by Rauner to relieve political pressure over popular issues which might otherwise force him to abandon his reform demands before approving a broader spending plan.
Ida Jackson of Springfield is a social worker and LIHEAP recipient. She said families which need LIHEAP but don’t get it may have to choose between buying food and paying for heat. Speaking at the Illinois Statehouse before the bill passed the House, Jackson called on lawmakers to “do their jobs.”
“We look at overseas pictures of children starving, but right here in our own community, we have people going through (hardship),” she said. “We must have love and concern for one another, and also just have a heart.”
Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].
