Help with utility bills gets harder to find

Jul 28 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Eric Pera The Ledger, Lakeland, Fla.

 

It's only $131, but Tammy Rutledge said she doesn't have it. At least not until Friday, when her monthly Social Security Disability benefit comes through.

But the delay in arrival doesn't matter to Lakeland Electric, she said, so the utility cut off her power Friday morning.

Earlier in the week, Rutledge, 44, scrambled to find assistance with her delinquent bill, but she came up empty.

"I've called everybody," she said. "Churches, charities, Nobody has any funds."

To be fair, most utility companies are inundated with requests from people like Rutledge, people living from paycheck to paycheck. For them, any unexpected expense can disrupt their ability to meet obligations, triggering a need for frenzied, last-minute phone calls for assistance.

In Polk and many other areas, the network of agencies dispensing special funds for emergency utilities assistance is overwhelmed with pleas.

Many calls for help are from the working poor, people who have seen work hours reduced or who have been laid off and can't find another job as a result of lingering economic doldrums, social services experts say.

FAVORING THE WORKING POOR

Agencies must decide how best to dole out the limited emergency assistance dollars at their disposal, and more and more they're favoring the working poor over those who are retired or disabled and living on fixed, limited incomes, said June Barnett, director of the 2-1-1 information and referral service at United Way of Central Florida, which oversees FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter funds in Polk.

"There's no free money anymore," she said. "It makes it very difficult for people who have no income other than government subsidies to get help."

To qualify for Federal Emergency Management Agency emergency funds, people must have suffered a sudden critical expense, such as an emergency car repair.

And they must be able to prove their electric needs are only temporary, that they'll have the means to pay their bills next month.

It's not clear whether Rutledge met that criteria but even if she did, she would have to get a jump on her competition and reach an assistance agency before it runs out of money for the month.

The tough criteria is being applied more and more to other pots of money as well, at the insistence of United Way and other organizations determined to break a cycle of dependency on community largesse, which is especially strained in Polk.

The county ranks eighth in the nation in "food hardship" and suburban poverty in a Brookings Institution analysis.

In many cases, requests for monetary assistance are met with a carrot-and-stick approach, requiring applicants to sign up for free counseling and money management classes.

The philosophy is people can better manage their income and learn to put away money for a rainy day.

MONEY MANAGEMENT

Many of the people requesting emergency help for an overdue electric bill are not managing their incomes properly, Barnett said.

Instead of prioritizing basic needs, including rent, mortgage and utilities, they may go overboard on food costs, or luxuries that include cellular phones and cable TV. Add a minor incident such as a plumbing or automobile repair, and they quickly get behind.

The No. 1 request from callers to United Way's 2-1-1 service line is for help paying utility bills, she said.

"They get into this cycle where if anything goes wrong, it disrupts their budget so badly they spend their time trying to catch up," Barnett said, and it's especially troublesome for those living on Social Security disability or other subsidies.

"Their income doesn't change," she said. "You know pretty much when you're going to run out."

Referral specialists at United Way often direct pleas for utilities assistance to the Agricultural and Labor Program Inc., or ALPI, which administrates federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funds in Polk. Those dollars are primarily to pay electric bills, and are a bit more flexible than FEMA funds.

Polk's LIHEAP allotment for the current fiscal year is $2.4 million, compared with $2.5 million for the previous year. To manage the flood of requests, ALPI distributes the money in monthly allotments so there's enough money to last the year.

On average, the agency is able to fund 500 requests each month, officials said, but the requests keep coming after the application window is closed, which happens fairly quickly.

That leaves plenty of people in the dark, which can be harmful at this time of year, especially for those like Rutledge, who shares a manufactured home with her husband, Kenneth, 43, who suffers from back problems and is appealing an initial denial of disability benefits. Meanwhile, they get by on Tammy Rutledge's monthly disability benefit of $720.

To pay their bills they recently took in a roommate who gets a disability check of $750, except when unexpected expenses arise.

Rutledge said she tries her best to manage household income, but sometimes she ends up short and is unable to keep the lights on.

That's happened more than once this year, she said, as they went without power for a week in June.

When the government checks arrived, she had the power restored.

Some Lakeland Electric customers can get extensions in certain circumstances, but only if they've been on the books for six months or more. Rutledge and her husband have been customers only for five months.

While waiting to have power restored, the Rutledges spend days at a nearby lake, sitting in the shade.

They return home at dusk when things have cooled down, resigned to the likelihood that they're on their own to pay their bills on time.

"I'm disabled. I need untilto pay, that's when I get my check," Tammy Rutledge said. "They (Lakeland Electric) don't want to hear it."

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