ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 3, 1996 TAG: 9612030084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
SOME SAY those in dire need aren't being helped. But state welfare officials says there's not enough cash to go around.
Some housing activists are complaining that too-strict state welfare rules are tying up $1.4 million intended for weatherizing the homes of low-income people overwhelmed by heating costs.
The money is supposed to provide insulation and repairs to help them lower their heating bills.
But some critics say the Virginia Department of Social Services has written its eligibility rules so tightly that many in dire need - including elderly people and families with broken or dangerous furnaces - won't get the help.
To qualify, a household's monthly energy costs must equal 100 percent of its income. For example, a family that uses wood heat generally would have to have a monthly income of less than $239.
``The people that you're eliminating are a lot of folks who are on Social Security or disability,'' said Billy Weitzenfeld, who runs the weatherization program at New River Community Action Agency. ``There's a lot of folks out there who are going to suffer - and suffer big time.''
The state Department of Housing and Community Development has complained about the rules. That has prompted a special meeting today in Richmond between officials from the state housing and welfare departments.
But state welfare officials say they do not foresee any changes. They say they wrote the rules the way they did for good reason - a dwindling number of federal energy assistance dollars are flowing down to the state, and they want to target the money to people who are in the most desperate straits. Welfare officials say they've distributed a list of more than 12,000 clients who probably would qualify for the help.
"We can only do so much with the money," said Charlene Chapman, manager of benefit programs for the welfare department. "So we have to make decisions and target it."
Federal fuel assistance funding has been cut year after year since the early 1980s. In 1984, Chapman said, the state welfare agency received about $40 million. This year the agency has $19 million - a drop that is even more dramatic when inflation is taken into account. A decade ago, the average fuel assistance client received $326 each winter; now the average is barely half that.
This year, $1.4 million of the state's fuel assistance money is supposed to go to help clients cut their energy costs in the long run by improving their homes.
Local programs such as New River Community Action also receive weatherization funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB