Fall leaves have barely hit the ground, but utility bills will soon pivot from cooling to heating. For some New Yorkers whose utility costs are too high, preparing for winter and the energy bills that come with it can begin as early as next week.
Starting October 2, eligible households in New York will be able to apply for help with covering critical emergency and non-emergency assistance with keeping utilities on, furnace repairs, heating equipment replacement, and emergency repairs through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Non-emergency energy assistance applications will be accepted starting on Nov. 1.
It’s important to apply as early as possible, because applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis. New Yorkers can apply online, request an application by mail, or receive assistance in person at their nearest NYC Human Resources Administration office.
Briana Carbajal, state legislative manager for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a community organization that empowers low-income New Yorkers of color, said that LIHEAP doesn’t usually provide immediate relief, because applications often take weeks to process. If you find yourself at risk of having your utility services cut off, Carbajal offered some guidance: First, call your utility company to inquire about a payment freeze. Simultaneously, file an application with the NYC Human Resources Administration through the LIHEAP program. If further assistance is needed, consider reaching out to charitable organizations in your community like WE ACT and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
A significant challenge to protecting people in colder months is that many New Yorkers don’t know that they may qualify for the program.
“The funds are only reaching a portion of the people [who] are actually eligible for the program,” said Carbajal. “We think that it’s a really important program. We are constantly advocating for the federal government to increase the amount of funding that they’re putting into this program, because the need is clearly there.”
LIHEAP received more than $412 million in federal funds to fulfill these requests across the state last year, reaching just over 1 million households in recent years. New York applicants who sought support for heating services in recent years received an average of $479 in relief. However, despite the program’s decades-long role in protecting vulnerable families, it faces ongoing challenges in addressing the stress of maintaining utility services in the long term.
Somewhere around 50% of New Yorkers are eligible for these services, according to Diana Hernandez, associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, who studies energy inequality. However, one issue with the program is that a lot of these funds are going to homeowners, not renters.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that [renters] don’t experience energy hardships,” she said.
Renters tend to be burdened more than others in part because the landlords don’t have incentives to make the energy upgrades necessary to keep energy costs low. With housing costs rising, it’s hard to say how poor is “poor.”
Excessive heat in warmer months poses a significant threat to New Yorkers—extreme heat kills more people than any other weather-related event combined and affects Black New Yorkers twice as much as others— but staying warm over the cooler months is a safety issue, too. According to Anthony Rogers-Wright, director of environmental justice for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), inadequate heat at home leads people to resort to unsafe measures to stay warm.
“We have a dangerous situation where some people are using their stoves—their gas stoves—to keep themselves warm,” he said. “We’ve had these buildings that are not well-insulated [and] the electricity is too high and people can’t afford electricity.”
The continued legacy of racism
Energy bills are usually higher for Black and brown New Yorkers, with families in the Bronx and Queens experiencing some of the highest energy burdens. More than 62,036 complaints were filed for heat and hot water issues in the city last January, with most in the Bronx and Queens, according to 311 data.
Structural racism further compounds energy burdens. “Those same racist policies and practices also determine how much people are able to earn, and where they could work…The way that it permeates across different sectors really has served to make life difficult, and the kind of economic aspects of life and policy perspective particularly challenging,” Hernandez said.
Accessing the LIHEAP program can be challenging for many New Yorkers facing financial pressures, especially with rent and utility bills, Carbajal said. These barriers become even more daunting for those with children, the elderly, or residents with limited computer access. “There’s just so many barriers,” she said.
Earlier this year, Governor Hochul announced a pilot program with the promise of energy bills accounting for no more than 6% of household income. But “for some people, that’s still too much,” Rogers-Wright said. He added that there are not only organizations but also some legislation to help back New Yorkers in fighting for their rights.
New York stands among several states that have recently passed laws to better protect tenants. Local Law 97, which requires landlords to make energy-efficient updates to their buildings, passed in New York City in 2019, and New York state’s constitution now guarantees that every resident of New York has the right to clean air, clean water, and a hospitable environment, he said. Laws like these around the country are starting to be used to protect tenants against negligent landlords.
“It’s still very nascent, there’s only been a few cases,” Rogers-Wright said. He noted that tenants can take inspiration from recent union strikes and organize, take collective action, or even unionize, like the Crown Heights Tenant Union. With an election year approaching, he said energy inequality and tenant rights can be measures that New Yorkers pressure candidates to prioritize.
Meanwhile, Carbajal recommended that eligible New Yorkers enroll in the state’s Energy Affordability Program (EAP) to save between $13 and $75 per month on utility bills for about a year. She said that enrolling in the program may also help with utility debt accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic: Enrollees to the EAP with utility debt through May 1, 2022, can have up to $4,750 cleared from their bills.
“It’s a crucial program that I always tell anyone who comes to WE ACT asking about bill assistance because it’s one way in which I can definitely help them check if they’re enrolled. If not, then I will try to provide them with other bill assistance,” Carbajal said.