Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last year, the Virginia Department of Social Services altered guidelines for the "crisis" component of its energy assistance program. Beginning this winter, the program stopped providing payments on past-due heating bills, payments to prevent electric service cutoffs or authorizations for fuel delivery.
Federal funding cuts are to blame.
The state's energy assistance program is funded with federal money. Those dollars have declined slowly over the years - from $40million in 1986 to $25million.
"Congress has the idea that states should be more responsible for these services," said Charlene Chapman, the department's manager of benefits programs. "That's why they keep cutting us through the years. Right now, Virginia is not contributing anything."
Chapman said she knew of no movements afoot that would encourage state contribution to the program.
The state's energy assistance program has two components - fuel assistance, which helps people offset the cost of home energy, and crisis assistance, for people with household energy-related emergencies.
Applications for the fuel assistance program traditionally are accepted and processed between mid-October and mid-November each year. Help also had been offered to people who had not applied for fuel assistance but who needed "crisis" help to avoid loss of home heat.
Much of that help - the most crucial part of the crisis assistance program, some say - no longer is available. Crisis assistance now is limited to maintenance, repair or replacement of heating equipment; a one-time payment of a primary heat source security deposit; purchase of portable space heaters; or payment for one or two nights of emergency shelter.
"I think it probably was the most critical," Elliott Bayer, eligibility supervisor for the Roanoke Department of Social Services, said of the crisis services that were cut. "We had those who had not gotten in and applied for fuel assistance. Then they got in a tight spot and, for example, ran out of oil in their tank. Now we're getting a lot of calls from people saying, 'What am I going to do?'''
Bayer wrote a memo in October alerting his staff to the guideline changes. In it, he warned that even with the then-mild weather, available department resources would be strained. He attached to the memo a list of other resources - Appalachian Power Co.'s Neighbor to Neighbor program, Roanoke Gas Co.'s HeatShare program, Total Action Against Poverty, Roanoke Area Ministries and several other agencies.
"These resources ... will provide the bulk of assistance to heat-related emergencies this season," Bayer wrote.
by CNB