Home heating help in jeopardy for low-income local residents

by Elaine Blaisdell Cumberland Times-News
Assistance program benefits thousands in Western Maryland; funding on hold

 OAKLAND — Residents in Garrett County, mainly senior citizens, could go without heat this winter unless the federal government agrees to a final budget decision on Maryland Energy Assistance Program benefits or provides benefits while waiting on the decision.“We are getting a lot of calls; this affects about a quarter of the households in Garrett County, and to date we have not been given permission to release any of the money,” said Duane Yoder, president of Garrett County Community Action Committee Inc., during Tuesday’s county commission meeting. “We are facing situations where we know people will be out of fuel and we can’t help.”

The energy assistance program provides benefits to low- to moderate-income residents who need help with home heating costs. About 150 senior residents in Garrett County are in dire need of heat, said Linda Green, director of services coordination for the community action committee.
“I am very concerned at this point,” said Yoder in an interview with the Times-News. “Some people have very severe problems and it can be life-threatening. We can’t just ignore it.”
The community action community is sitting on about $1 million that has been deposited for its heating assistance energy program and is waiting for the green light to distribute the benefits to the almost 2,400 residents who are precertified, Yoder said. The federal government is set to make a decision by Dec. 16, but it has a history of extending that deadline, Yoder said. There is also a proposed 40 percent reduction on the benefits.
Making a decision on assistance program benefits is difficult since the final funding has not been decided and it could take a week or longer to process precertification applications, according to Ralph Markus, director of Maryland Office of Home Energy Programs.
“Current available information is being looked at in order to decide what action to take,” Markus said.
As of Monday, Markus had received more than 61,000 precertifications.
In Allegany County, where a similar situation exists, residents seeking assistance are still urged to file their applications, said Courtney Thomas, executive director of the Human Resources Development Commission. Some emergency funds through a community block grant are still available, so the HRDC continues to help out in “crisis” situations, Thomas said. Because Congress has not passed a final budget, the HRDC can’t set its budget and disburse funds, she said.
About 5,000 families use the program each year in Allegany County.
“It’s one of the larger single projects we run,” said Thomas.
Yoder and Monty Pagenhardt, Garrett County administrator, had a conference call with Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office regarding the benefits following Tuesday’s commission meeting.
“We were informed there would be some follow-up to move the funding along,”  Pagenhardt wrote in an email to the Times-News.
As of Wednesday morning, the governor’s office didn’t have an answer and noted that it was still looking into the issue, according to Yoder.
 In the past, the energy assistance program has benefited about 3,000 households in Garrett County that got an average of about $550, according to Yoder. The maximum reduction that the federal government can give is 40 percent, which would leave households with about $330. The cost of coal has gone up to about $150 a ton and the cost of fuel and wood has also gone up, according to Green.
The community action committee is usually able to provide grant money in situations like this, but that money is not available, Yoder said. The county commissioners asked what they could do to help and agreed to loan the committee the money. However, the committee can’t accept the loan because of federal and state regulations, unless a waiver or permission is granted, Yoder said
“I don’t know how easy it would be to get permission to accept the loan or to grant a waiver. If it could be done, the county could step in to bridge the gap,” said Yoder.
Yoder would like to see at least 60 percent of the benefits given out now and once a decision is made, distribute the additional money if more is available, he said. 
The community action committee is contacting local churches to see if they would be willing to adopt a family who is in dire need of heating assistance.
“The problem with that is the help would be very sporadic, but I think the community would step in and respond,” said Yoder.
For more information on the community action committee’s heating assistance program, visit the website at www.garrettcac.org.
Contact Elaine Blaisdell at eblaisdell@times-news.com. Staff writer Matthew Bieniek contributed to this story.