Home heating assistance seen at record high, By Jonathan Fahey (AP), San Jose Mercury News: “High energy prices, high unemployment and a cold winter are prompting a record number of households to seek home heating assistance. The National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association will announce Wednesday that 8.9 million households are expected to qualify for financial help this winter, up from 8.3 million last winter. It’s the third year in a row the number of households needing assistance has set a new high. The chief reason is the economy, according to Mark Wolfe, Executive Director of NEADA. ‘We have this group who weren’t poor before the recession, who are poor now and scrambling for whatever they can get,’ Wolfe says. ‘It’s a tough situation.’ Congress doubled funding for the program, called Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, to $5.1 billion two years ago and matched that level last year. Congressional Republicans are expected to try to pare that back during budget negotiations next week…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty