LIHEAP aid is still needed to protect children

By John Rowe

Pennsylvania's Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) ended for the season March 21, the earliest closing in five years. It is difficult to make any sense of this decision when energy costs are skyrocketing and the need is so great and so obvious.

According to the Pennsylvania Gas Association's study of the decision to close LIHEAP, 48 states keep the program open longer, and most run their program until all the money is used. Go figure. I guess Pennsylvania knows better than 48 other states.

LIHEAP was expected to distribute 540,727 cash grants and crisis grants in 2007-08. When it closed, LIHEAP had given out 478,599 grants - 62,128 fewer than expected.

Unfortunately, the estimated 125,000 children in Pennsylvania (including 75,000 in Philadelphia) whose families could have received LIHEAP aid are being hurt.

The Children's Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program (C-SNAP), a Boston national research center of pediatricians and public-health experts, found that LIHEAP is crucial to protecting the health of the youngest and most vulnerable children. C-SNAP's research has shown clearly that when low-income families do not receive energy assistance, they must make stark choices that have devastating effects on their children.

C-SNAP tracked children 6 to 24 months old who received acute emergency care at the former Boston City Hospital within three months of the coldest month of the year. The differences between families who did and did not receive LIHEAP was startling. The study stated that "babies and toddlers in income-eligible families who do not receive LIHEAP benefits are significantly more likely to be underweight and 32 percent more likely to be admitted to the hospital on the day of the C-SNAP interview."

When families face the choice to "heat or eat," long-term health problems in children can result. Problems include malnutrition, leading to increased illness; poor growth; and cognitive and developmental deficits, resulting in poor school attendance and poor school performance. (Don't we have an education problem that we are trying to solve in Philadelphia?)

The Utility Emergency Services Fund, of which I am executive director, is here to help in Philadelphia but is hard-pressed to take up the state's slack for the 37,000 Philadelphia families not getting LIHEAP aid. It has enough money to help about 1,500 families through June 30. Overall, the fund will assist about 6,000 families this year by preventing utility terminations or helping to get utility service restored.

The fund provides grants to low-income families and teams with 12 Philadelphia community organizations.

Peco Energy, Philadelphia Gas Works, the Philadelphia Water Department, the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Foundation, local corporations, and individual donors have all provided financial support to the fund to assist families in need. Significantly, the three utilities provide matching bill credits, doubling the magnitude of our work.

Isn't it odd that so many advocates argue LIHEAP should be increased at the federal level to better protect the most vulnerable among us while our own state withholds assistance that the federal government has already allocated? Isn't it foolhardy to suggest to the federal government that LIHEAP funding is already adequate? After all, Pennsylvania is sending the government the message that we have enough money to protect our children.

I applaud the work of City Controller Alan Butkovitz, Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., and the Rev. Ellis Washington, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, for trying to get the state to release LIHEAP money now, when it is needed.