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Most of us take it for granted. The cold weather arrives, but our homes remain warm enough for all day comfort. If you have natural gas as your furnace fuel, you barely notice any changes — except the monthly bill from the utility company.
Maybe, for reasons either economic or ecological, you keep your thermostat turned down a tad, allowing just enough of a chill that you need to wear an extra layer — a sweatshirt, say — around the house. No biggie, it’s not so bad that you’re pulling a knit cap over your ears and a pair of gloves (probably fingerless, so you can still get work done).
But there are many who can’t afford those larger bills, and for them the onset of cold weather can be brutal. Having a place to live is only part of the equation during the winter months. The other important part is being able to keep your space warm enough.
The federally funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), is designed to help more people fulfill that second need. Administered in Pennsylvania by the state Department of Human Services, LIHEAP helps people through cash or crisis grants given directly to a household’s utility company or home heating fuel provider.
These are not loans. Those who successfully apply do not have to pay anything back. The cash assistance grants can run from $200 to $1,000 per heating season. The crisis grants (for emergencies like furnace repairs, leaky lines or risk of service cut-off) run from $25 to $1,000. As many a homeowner may surmise, those are not extravagant amounts in today’s heating fuel market, so this is hardly an example of runaway government spending.
Yet the need is so great that in the 2023-24 heating season, the state provided a bit more than $113 million in cash grants to 302,365 households, and another $63.4 million to 114,614 households in crisis benefits.
Yes, roughly $177 million is a lot of money, until you compare it to the state budget, which this year is $47.6 billion, with a “b”. Last year’s LIHEAP spending does not even amount to 0.4% of this year’s state budget.
And it’s hard to think of many better ways to spend a little part of the budget. We all should have the ability to keep our residence warm enough to make living bearable during the winter months.
“Every Pennsylvanian deserves the dignity and peace of mind of knowing they can heat their homes and keep themselves and their families warm and safe during the darkest and coldest months of the year,” DHS Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh said in a media release shortly before the LIHEAP program officially began this month.
There is the obvious catch: If you need help, you have to ask for it. LIHEAP applications can be submitted from Nov. 4 through April 4 of 2025. There are income limits and some other restrictions. You need to be able to provide a recent heating bill and proof of household income for each household member. You can get all the information you need, and apply online at pa.gov.
The fastest way to find the LIHEAP web page is to either simply do a web search for “Pennsylvania LIHEAP,” or go to the state’s home page and use the site’s search box. You can also get info and apply at Luzerne County’s two assistance offices: 205 South Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre or 10 West Chestnut Street in Hazleton. The LIHEAP number for either is 570-820-4882.
As the cold deepens, keep LIHEAP in mind. And if you have no problems staying warm yourself, be a good neighbor and make sure those you know either don’t need help, or know where to get it.