Federal funding increase to aid area heating bills

Published 4:00 am Monday, March 13, 2006

More than 1,200 households that were on a waiting list in January to get energy assistance from the Central Oregon Community Action Agency Network may finally get aid because of an increase in federal funding, according to Elissa Guidos, COCAAN’s emergency services coordinator.

The nonprofit agency – which was founded in 1985 and works with the U.S. Low Income Energy Assistance Program to help about 3,200 Central Oregon households with their utility bills each winter – received about an extra $124,000 from LIHEAP, a grant that helped reduce COCAAN’s waiting list to zero.

”It’s a little bit of security,” Guidos said. ”They’ll have a bill they’re not going to have to worry about.”

COCAAN offers a one-time payment of about $280 for people who need financial help for heat.

An individual with a yearly income of $19,210 could qualify, as could a family of four with $36,942 and a household of nine with $52,088.

COCAAN helped about 3,000 people last winter, Guidos said, and already 2,300 homes have received aid this season.

Another 53 people have put themselves on the nonprofit’s waiting list that reopened today, but they could soon receive aid because of the U.S. Senate’s decision on Tuesday to give $1 billion more to the federal energy assistance program.

That means Oregon won’t have to wait until next fall to receive additional funding to help pay heating bills, according to a press release from Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will distribute the funds immediately.

COCAAN has already received $894,679 from the federal government to help fulfill its mission statement of breaking the cycle of poverty by helping remove the barriers that prevent people from achieving economic self-sufficiency.

”Our goal is to not just provide the one-time service,” Guidos said, ”but to also hopefully connect with outer resources and other programs … and help them continue to be successful.”