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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Weatherization

Home Weatherization Program – Texas

Texas slow to spend stimulus money on weatherizing homes of poor, elderly, By Randy Lee Loftis, March 31, 2010, Dallas Morning News: “Winter has passed, but the state’s pace of spending federal stimulus money to weatherize poor Texans’ homes is just starting to heat up. Under the 2009 federal stimulus bill, Texas received $327 million from the Department of Energy to help armor 33,908 homes of low-income or elderly people against the cold and heat. Texas must spend the money by March 2012 or lose it. A review in December found that in the first four months, the state had spent only $1.8 million and completed work on just seven homes. At a state House committee hearing Tuesday at Dallas City Hall, Texas officials presented numbers showing progress. Work has been finished on an estimated 2,450 homes or apartments and planning has been started on 2,200 more. About $13 million has been spent…”

Low-income Home Weatherization Program – Ohio

Broken fixes: Inspectors find shoddy work in weatherization program, By Doug Caruso, March 14, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “When low-income Ohioans receive help to improve their insulation and furnace, the quality of the work – including the potential for deadly mistakes – appears to depend on where they live. State records show that 12 of the 58 nonprofit agencies in Ohio’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program passed all of their state inspections in the past three years. That includes two of the agencies that serve Franklin County: the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Ground Level Solutions. But 20 other agencies failed more than half of their state inspections, and five of those failed all of them. And that’s just among the houses that were inspected. Federal rules call for examining the work in one of every 20 houses. Overall, nearly 40 percent of the houses that state inspectors checked failed…”

Home Energy Assistance Programs

  • Need for heat aid in Minnesota higher this year, By Maria Elena Baca, December 21, 2009, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “This winter, Art Swanson is thankful to be part of a group he’d just as soon have avoided. The Anoka County resident represents the newest trend among the more than 125,000 Minnesotans who have applied for federal heating assistance since Oct. 1 (the start of the fiscal year): At 50, he’s a first-time customer. He was laid off in January from his job as a union glazier, installing windows and doors mostly in new commercial buildings, and work this year has been inconsistent at best. Statewide, the number of applicants to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is up 8 percent from this time last year, and 19.5 percent from December 2007. Administrators point to a growing number of families dealing with unemployment or underemployment for the first time…”
  • Texas agency slow to spend stimulus funds to weatherize homes, By James Drew, December 20, 2009, Dallas Morning News: “The state received millions of federal dollars from the economic-stimulus package to help poor Texans cut their energy bills, but by the end of last month, just seven homes had been weather-treated under the program. The state has spent $1.8 million of $163 million available over the past four months, with most of it going to administrative costs, such as the salaries of state workers. The weatherization program was a key element of the federal effort to revive the economy, billed as a quick way to create jobs, save energy and cut utility bills. In Texas, the task has been heaped onto a midsized agency that must figure how to hand out millions more in federal funds to local agencies and governments, but do it carefully enough to avoid wasting money…”