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LIHEAP Federal Staffing Crisis Threatens Energy Assistance for Vulnerable Residents · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Humboldt county residents could face significant challenges in receiving critical energy assistance after the US Department of Health and Human Services unexpectedly laid off federal workers managing the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as liheap, according to local officials. Val Martinez, executive director of the Redwood Community Action Agency, warns that the staffing crisis could potentially paralyze the program that assists low income household with utility bills and heating costs.
• 0:35
  Speaker B: Talked to a number of folks that I know in the business in D.C. who verified that yeah, this did happen and no one seems to know because there is no written plan, there's no verbalized plan on what's next from the administration or from hhs. Everything is kind of moot. So we have no idea. The worst case scenario is that although Congress has appropriated the funds for the program year 2025, the people who would normally be processing the invoices, gathering the information from the various states and collecting the data and the reimbursing the states and then ultimately reimbursing local agencies like Redwood Community Action Agency aren't there and won't be there as far as we know. So we have no idea what's going to happen. We have some funds locally. It is a reimbursement program. In other words, we spend the money and then we seek reimbursement from the state who then in turn seeks reimbursement from the feds. So you can imagine how this has got everything all balled up. State has no more information than we do because it's pretty much radio silent.
• 2:04
  Speaker A: Currently, approximately 40,000 individuals in Humboldt county qualify for LIHEAP, but funding only allows assistance to roughly 1500 households. Martinez shared with KMUD listeners the assistance LIHEAP funding provides for applicants in Humboldt county and and across the nation.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: The LIHEAP program, which stands for Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, began because with the deregulation of natural gas, people were freezing to death in Mid Atlantic and northeast because of the high cost of fuel oil. And after so many people died that winter, it was decided that there needed to be a program to help people with the utility costs. And it was affecting people on the west coast as well, but maybe not as dramatically as it was in those areas. And so the program was created to help low income households with their utility bills, whether it was the purchase of firewood, propane, fuel oil, or if it was for natural gas or electricity to heat your home. So it helps pay the bill that you cannot afford to pay. And in some cases people have shut off notices and we help prevent them from getting shut off by paying the amount due in order to restore their services or to maintain their services. And with folks with firewood, propane, fuel oil, we help purchase the stuff so that they have that commodity available to help them throughout the winter months.
• 3:37
  Speaker A: RCAA has an outreach program for homebound seniors and disabled households, ensuring the most vulnerable populations have energy and heating assistance.
• 3:47
  Speaker B: So every year we allow them to go on a list and then we have outreach specialists that deal specifically to those populations so that they don't get overlooked.
• 3:56
  Speaker A: The funding locally relies on a reimbursement process where local agencies spend funds and then seek state and federal reimbursement. That funding could be severely disrupted.
• 4:08
  Speaker B: The state has done a good job thus far keeping up with reimbursement, but at some point it's going to catch up with the state and it's going to catch up with local service providers and it'll catch up with us at some point if there's no one there on the federal level to be processing those invoices and reimbursing the states. Although it's not the same as the order that was placed at the end of January where they wanted to make stop payments, it could potentially have that same effect.
• 4:40
  Speaker A: A recent letter from a LIHEAP recipient highlighted the dire situation of some Humboldt county residents and the benefits of the LIHEAP program.
• 4:49
  Speaker B: Recently I got a letter from an 85 year old woman. She wanted to thank us for helping her because she was saying how she's done everything possible to try to cut her costs. And this included like taking a shower once a week and doing everything, plus going to bed early, not using her heat or minimizing the amount of healing heat that she uses. And even with that, she was struggling to keep up. And she was asking us, who can I write to? Who can I talk about this? And we told her, well, you can write to Congressman Huffman and let him know how important this program is to you and ask that he supported. And she did. She wrote a beautiful letter to him and we forwarded it also to our federal advocate so that they could share that with others. And I think that if anybody is concerned about it, I would suggest that they do the same.
• 5:44
  Speaker A: While the full impact remains unknown, the California Department of Community Services and Development reached out to service providers like RCAA and stated as of April 3rd, the CSD still had access to the federal Health and Human Services Payment Management Services and had submitted the weekly drawdown. The department continues to monitor access to all grant awards on a daily basis to ensure access to fund remain on their normal schedule. CSD stated they'd update providers if reimbursement delays or access was compromised. Cayman News will be following up with local and state reps as the impacts of the federal layoffs become clear. Reporting for Cayman News, I'm Lisa Music.