With the chilly winds of November blowing ever colder, Charles Dircks has developed a strategy to keep warm this winter inside the weakening frame home his father built 80 years ago.
“Basically, I’ll live in the kitchen,” Dircks said, noting that is the room where he has plugged in an electric heater. “It’s going to be the only warm room in the house.”
A South Side retiree, Dircks, 77, is one of thousands of Illinois residents who could be without heat this winter. His natural gas service was shut off in April after he fell $1,700 behind in payments.
While state regulations prevent energy companies from cutting off heat to residences from December through March, the regulations do nothing for the thousands of residents like Dircks whose service is already cut off and may not be able to afford to be reconnected.
But community activists are trying to close that loophole by turning up the heat on Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state legislators. They are asking the politicians to compel Peoples Energy, Nicor and other Illinois natural gas companies to reconnect all homes without heat, as long as residents pay a portion of their bill and agree to stick to a payment plan. Similar measures are already in place in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Activists plan to rally in Springfield and push for the change this week during the final days of the fall veto session, but many fear the matter will not be addressed until the spring, leaving few answers for the 22,000 Chicago households Peoples said are without heat.
“If we’ve got that many households in Chicago without heat, that means there are between 40,000 and 50,000 residents statewide that are facing a very cold winter,” said Bob Vondrasek, executive director of the South Austin Coalition. “Something must be done.”
The movement is the newest twist in a perennial problem in which many low-income residents endure harsh winters without heat, mostly by using unsafe electric and kerosene heaters in their homes that sometimes have deadly consequences.
Last year, 10 percent of fire deaths in Chicago were caused by space heaters, a Fire Department spokesman said. This month, Marie Brown, 43, died in her wheelchair and five others were injured after a fire sparked by a space heater swept through her Englewood home, which had been without gas service since July.
Running space heaters isn’t cheap, but the cost can be managed. Dircks, for example, only runs his when he is home. He tries to spend less time there during cold months, choosing instead to go to public buildings during the day or visit friends and relatives. Low-income advocates said such strains are reason enough to push for gas service to be restored but claim that the monetary barriers for reinstatement can be ominous.
“You usually have to pay a deposit, a reconnection fee, and pay off the bill,” said Roger Colton, an author of a National Fuel Funds Network study on the issue.
Utility companies counter that many other options are in place.
“If you are disconnected and you qualify for financial assistance, we will try to fill the gap,” said Elizabeth Castro, the spokeswoman for Peoples Energy. “There are lots of programs out there even if you don’t qualify for ours.”
Indeed, a patchwork of programs are available, the most abundant of which is the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which will administer $1.7 billion to $2 billion to the states this year, depending on which version of the bill makes its way through Congress.
In addition to that, charities fill some need, and Illinois also adds to the pot. The state’s energy assistance program’s budget this winter is $144 million and is expected to benefit 300,000 households, officials have said.
That patchwork itself can create problems because the rules for getting help and getting service restored can be easily misunderstood.
The Illinois Commerce Commission said gas and electric utilities can shut off service from April through the end of November anytime a customer is in arrears, although they rarely cut off service to those who are just a month behind. To get reconnected, customers with financial problems must pay at least one-fifth of what they owe, as well as one-fifth of required reconnection fees and deposits–which can run into the hundreds of dollars. That in itself can be a hefty price, but many whose service has been cut off mistakenly said they have to pay the full reconnection fee and deposits up front, which is not the case.
Activists said officials do an inadequate job of explaining the rules for reconnection and the kind of aid available to people in need. On top of that, they contend, the money that is available is simply inadequate. Not only does it often run out in Illinois by December, but often the federal program, which helps 4.6 million households a year, only reaches 20 percent of eligible Americans, said Mark Wolfe, spokesman for the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
“There are several problems, from an inadequate amount of funding to the lack of outreach programs to let families know something is available,” he said.
Wolfe said states don’t do a good job of reaching out to low-income consumers to let them know about what kind of help is available to them.
Added to that is the unpredictability of natural gas prices, which some experts said could jump 13 percent or more this winter.
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“Low-income people can’t pay for heat and their rent, especially with the volatility [in natural gas prices] we’ve seen in the market in recent years,” said Meg Power, executive director of Economic Opportunity Studies in Washington, a non-profit group that assists low-income advocates.
Dircks has been told that he will be eligible for more than $400 in federal heat assistance, but he has yet to receive it. That could be enough to get service restored, but he is not sure and is not counting on it.
Although details are still being worked out, advocates said they would like to see Illinois adopt a measure similar to Ohio’s, which since 1984 has mandated natural gas and electric utilities to reconnect heating service to Ohio customers who have been disconnected for nonpayment. Under Ohio’s plan, customers whose service has been cut off can have the heat restored anytime between Oct. 20 and April 15 by paying off their bill or $175, whichever is less. They then will be placed on a payment plan to pay off the remainder. The customers also must pay a reconnection fee of $20.
That’s a far cry from the amount of money Rosie Tyson, 57, whose South Side home has been without gas since September, believes she has to pay to be reconnected. Tyson’s gas bill is $655 in arrears, and she said the reconnection fee is $245. She said she has received a small amount of federal assistance but has asked charities for extra help without success.
So now, despite the safety risks, Tyson is heating her living room with an electric space heater.
“I only burn it when I’m up. If I can’t watch it, I unplug it,” she said, adding, “I’m too far behind to even think about catching up” on the heat bill.
Going without natural gas has also posed other problems, Tyson said. Her house now goes without hot water. To bathe, she places water on a hot plate and sponges herself over the sink.
“This winter people will needlessly die because of this situation and nothing is being done to stop it,” said Curly Cohen, an organizer with Affordable Power to the People, which has staged two marches on Blagojevich’s office this fall to demand he support reconnection reform.
Administration officials have said they are examining the reconnection issue.
Meanwhile, Erin O’Connell-Diaz, a commissioner with the Illinois Commerce Commission, said the state has never really addressed the issue like Wisconsin or Ohio have.
“We don’t like to see people cut off, people don’t like being cut off and gas companies, I think, don’t like to cut people off,” she said. “But there has to be some recognition that there’s a debt here that’s owed.”