Four million homes had their heat or power turned off this year. (Photo by Elizabeth A. Sellers, courtesy of the National Biological Information Infrastructure)
Millions of families had their heat
or electricity shut off this year.
Rebecca Williams reports that happened
even though government assistance
for energy bills doubled:
Transcript
Millions of families had their heat
or electricity shut off this year.
Rebecca Williams reports that happened
even though government assistance
for energy bills doubled:
Record numbers of Americans are having trouble paying their heating or power bills.
Mark Wolfe is with the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association. He represents the state agencies that help people pay their energy bills.
He says when families use up their allotment of energy assistance, things can get tough.
“It’s pretty awful – they go to payday lenders, pay high interest rates to get extra money, they borrow from relatives, they cut back on medicine, they turn the heat down to dangerous levels. These are families that’ve already gone from steak to chicken to rice. They don’t have a lot of choices.”
Four million homes had their heat or power turned off this year.
Wolfe says unless the economy improves next year, the number of families needing help with their bills could be even greater.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.