WASHINGTON – Cynthia Ware faces a difficult choice every month — whether to clothe and feed her five children or heat her Baltimore home.
“Heating is hard,” said Ware, 48. “I have to decide whether to pay the rent or the gas and electric.”
She joined advocates and about a half-dozen senators Tuesday to urge President Bush to give more money — now and in the future — to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally funded program that helps elderly, disabled or low-income people to pay their heat or air conditioning bills.
“If the president wants to find a crisis he should look at this, here, now,” said Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., one of eight senators from both parties who called for the additional funding.
The plea came one day after the Department of Health and Human Services announced the release of an additional $100 million out of the $300 million in emergency funding that Sarbanes said Congress added to LIHEAP in December. Maryland is scheduled to get $1.77 million in additional funds under that allocation.
“These are funds over and above the annual appropriation,” said Steve Barbour, a spokesman for the department’s Administration for Children and Families.
But lawmakers and advocates said Tuesday that the additional money still is not enough.
The senators said the administration should immediately release the other $200 million, and that it should include $3.4 billion in the fiscal 2006 budget, up from about $2 billion where advocates said spending on LIHEAP has stood for the past several years.
At the current level, said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the government is serving only about 15 percent of the people who qualify for home-heating assistance.
Sarbanes said home heating is a crisis that must be resolved now.
“We are looking at a very difficult winter, some of the most vulnerable Americans are at risk,” Sarbanes said.
Carol Clements, a Baltimore resident who is also chairwoman of the board for the National Fuel Funds Network, said that heating assistance is crucial because it is “immediately life-saving.” Clements said people who lose their heat sometimes do not get enough to turn it back on, even with federal funds.
Ware said she has been having trouble paying her heating bill since she lost her job a few months ago. The heat was turned off in the fall and she was not able to get it turned back on until last week.
“Our options are limited,” said Ware, who worries about her children during the winter months.
“We’re grasping at straws,” Ware said. “We need it (money for heating), please help us — that’s all I can say.”
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