Pleas For Heating Assistance Highest In Years, Says Agency Social Workers Swamped With Calls From Families Who Can’T Pay Bills

For some, Christmas is nearing without even a lump of coal.

Despite mild early winter temperatures, Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs says demand for emergency heating assistance is the highest it’s been in a decade.

SNAP spokesperson Julie Graham says her agency is helping about 180 families a week who are facing shut-off notices, empty oil tanks or scarce fuel for wood stoves.

The agency is so swamped it is hiring extra social workers.

Without heating assistance, Graham said, families cook up dangerous alternatives, like bringing barbecue grills indoors.

“There’s always the danger of someone freezing and getting frostbite,” she said.

“There’s all sorts of dangers this time of year when someone doesn’t have access to a safe and adequate heat source.”

Curiously, the region’s main purse for emergency heating aid remains deep. Project Share last year helped 2,800 families in Eastern Washington and North Idaho - giving an average of $114 - and is well-funded this year.

But the unusual rush leaves SNAP social workers too swamped to help all of the families requesting help. The lucky families who get an appointment must wait several days before seeing a SNAP worker who can help them restore heat.

And other sources of emergency aid are shrinking. Cuts in a federal heating-assistance program mean 4,000 Spokane County families will get help this winter, fewer than half the 10,400 families helped in 1993-94.

This year is unusual, social workers say, because they’re seeing droves of the working poor who aren’t quite making it. Some report helping striking Kaiser Aluminum workers and their families.

Scott Cooper, social services director for the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Spokane, sees a trend of families requesting aid who dropped welfare for a minimum-wage job.

If the bread-winner loses the job, the economically fragile families end up needing emergency aid, he said.

“There’s always going to be that gap between the job and getting back on benefits,” Cooper said.

“It’s going to be during that gap when everything blows up … and I’m going to get the call.”

That was the case for Felicia Smith, a 21-year-old single mother. She has gradually dropped off welfare since September, when, as part of new get-to-work rules, she got a job as a teller at the Money Store.

But in the last two months, her marriage dissolved and she was fired for calling in sick too often.

She reapplied for welfare, but was told she earned too much in October to qualify for welfare benefits in December.

With no income or savings, bills piled up. Washington Water Power Co. shut off heat to her northeast Spokane apartment on Monday because she was $88.36 past due and has been delinquent in the past.

She sent her 2-year-old son, Elijah, to her mother in Idaho to spare him the cold. She’s been staying warm by burning newspapers in her fireplace while watching food go bad in her refrigerator.

“When everything hits, it hits you hard,” Smith said.

On Wednesday, SNAP paid part of the bill and a deposit to get the power back on. Smith is now sending out resumes in hopes of remaining off welfare.

SNAP’s Graham said workers at her agency are seeing an unusually high number of people who, like Smith, face shut-off notices.

But Susan Nielson, Project Share coordinator for WWP, says the power company issued 200 fewer shut-off notices in November than during the same month a year ago.

Nielson said the company tries to avoid shut-off notices by offering its 326,000 customers various payment plans. The company also donates $20,000 a year to Project Share.

“Shut-off notices are a last resort,” said Nielson. “We don’t like doing that.”

Jean Kreitz, a SNAP worker at the Northeast Spokane Community Center, said she hasn’t seen such need for at least a decade.

“Every call I get, they’re looking for help for their heat,” said Kreitz. “This year, there’s a lot of people that are hurting.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: HOW TO HELP Donations to Project Share can be made by calling SNAP at 456-7111 or through a direct contribution on your energy bill.