WASHINGTON – When Ericka Yarborough fell behind on her utility bills last winter, Pepco shut off the power in her Columbia Heights apartment. It stayed off for nearly eight months.
No power meant living in the dark, showering in cold water and no refrigerator to store groceries. It also meant no heat during the coldest months of the year.
“It was rough during the winter time,” said Yarborough, 34, who lives in subsidized housing and receives public assistance. “It’s freezing cold. You got to put on a million blankets, if you even have a million blankets. …You’ll be freezing cold. You barely want to get up.”
“Just living and going through this, it’s really hard, and it’s frustrating,” she said.
A proposal before the D.C. Council this year would expand utility protections for vulnerable residents like Yarborough by guaranteeing electricity and gas connection throughout the summer and winter months.
The bill, introduced by Council members Brianne K. Nadeau, D-Ward 1, and Trayon White, D-Ward 8, would prohibit utility companies in the District from disconnecting electricity or gas to certain households from May 15 through Sept. 15, and Nov. 1 through Feb. 29.
Currently, D.C. law prevents utility disconnections during weekends, holidays and when the temperature climbs above 95 degrees or below 32 degrees.
“In the District, we have some safeguards in place so that people won’t have their power turned off when it’s extremely hot or extremely cold. The reality is — and what I’ve heard from residents who are struggling to pay their rent, utilities, food and more — is that it’s not enough,” Nadeau said in an Oct. 8 statement. This bill “is a way to ease at least part of that burden as residents work to get above water. And it’s a way to protect our most vulnerable residents from unhealthy living conditions,” the statement added.
Under the proposal, titled the “Utility Disconnection Protection Act of 2024,” the expanded protections would apply to households with children under 18, seniors over 65, individuals with disabilities and recipients of certain public assistance programs. The District’s Department of Energy and the Environment would be responsible for the new regulations.
If passed, the bill would require utility providers to offer payment plans to protected customers who have been disconnected due to nonpayment. It would also put a $25 limit on the amount a company can charge to restore a customer’s power or gas. Currently, companies can require that an overdue balance is paid in full before restoring service to a customer.
The bill contains a provision requiring utility companies to file monthly reports on the number of disconnections and unpaid bills broken down by ward and ZIP code. Utility companies currently have to file reports quarterly and do not differentiate by area.
“The Utility Disconnection Protection Act could serve as a piece of legislation to provide pivotal consumer protections” to disadvantaged residents, said Kintéshia Scott, assistant people’s counsel at the Office of the People’s Counsel, an independent agency of D.C. government. Scott said many residents have yet to financially recover from the pandemic and “there are a number of consumers who face economic challenges and who are struggling to catch back up.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Pepco, the District’s public electric utility, said that while the company “fully understands and shares the concerns that have prompted the introduction of the ‘Utility Disconnection Protection Act,’” implementing “a new moratorium on disconnections, while well-intended, risks creating unintended consequences. Such a prolonged measure could leave customers with insurmountable debt.”
The statement added that Pepco offers flexible payment options and only disconnects customers as a last resort.
A representative for Washington Gas said in an email that the company would comply with the bill if it passes. He added that Washington Gas does not disconnect customers when temperatures fall below 32 degrees.
Nadeau, however, maintained that the current temperature-based regulations are flawed.
“If Pepco turns off the electricity on Monday when it’s 89 degrees and on Tuesday the temperature rises to 95, they don’t have to turn it back on,” she said in the Oct. 8 statement. “With more and more 90-degree days as the climate changes, saying that electricity can be shut off in the heat of summer – just not on the day temps rise over 95, isn’t enough. Those are conditions in which nobody should have to live, much less children with asthma, struggling seniors and other vulnerable populations.”
Selah Goodson Bell, an energy justice campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity and one of a group of advocates who pushed for the bill’s introduction, said the proposed changes are an important step forward.
“One of the main things the bill is trying to fix is the fact that we’re seeing shutoffs still peak during the summer, but these shutoffs are most dangerous for particularly vulnerable households,” Goodson Bell said. “Residents like seniors, youth, pregnant or postpartum individuals, and also individuals with a disability. All these different groups are more sensitive than the average person to extreme temperatures.”
The legislation comes as many District residents are struggling with the cost of utilities.
In the first eight months of 2024, Pepco sent 113,105 disconnection notices to customers, including 23,181 to low-income customers, according to a company report to the D.C. Public Service Commission. In the same time period, Pepco disconnected residential customers for nonpayment 6,396 times, 1,076 of which were for low-income customers.
For Yarborough, easing the financial burden of getting reconnected would be a game-changer.
“I think that would have definitely made a difference, because, you know, it’s 300 and something dollars” to pay the full bill and be reconnected now, she said. “And (it) should be like, ‘Can you pay $50 to $75?’ That’s reasonable.”
A resident of Columbia Heights Village, a subsidized apartment complex, Yarborough was ultimately able to get her utilities restored earlier this year with the support of community organizations like the Columbia Heights Village Tenants Association.
Cynthia Hall, the tenant association’s chief operating officer, said that many residents of the property face similar challenges. Within the previous two to three years, “probably at least three to four dozen of our residents have been disconnected. Probably about a dozen for extended periods of time, meaning exceeding 90 days or more,” Hall said.
Hall applauded Nadeau for pushing increased protections in the bill.
“The fact that the council member really cares to push this bill, to initiate and to push the bill, with hopes that this won’t happen in the future,” means that, “even if these (residents) fall into a financial hardship again, they don’t have to worry about sitting in their apartment in 30-degree weather without power,” she said.
The bill has been referred to the council’s Committee on Business and Economic Development and the Committee on Transportation and the Environment.
Neither committee has scheduled a hearing for the bill, and it may not get heard before the council period ends this year.
If so, Nadeau spokesperson David Connery-Marin said the council member plans to reintroduce the bill next year.