By Dana Klosner-Wehner
State Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm A. Smith (D-St. Albans), joined by senators Craig Johnson (D-Nassau) and Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Bronx), announced their proposal for an innovative home energy assistance plan that they say would benefit more than two million New Yorkers.
“This is another crisis we are facing as homeowners,” Smith said. “People are choosing whether to heat their house or buy bread and milk.”
Senate Democrats called for expanding federal funding of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that would allow an expanded home energy assistance benefit for low-income New Yorkers, according to Smith. Senate Democrats would aim to double the average LIHEAP benefit for the 2008-2009 winter heating season. This would benefit up to 970,000 families of four making up to $45,000 a year with $1,000 of assistance.
They are also calling for a new state-funded program that would benefit middle income homeowners, MIHEAP, a Middle-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. This would provide an average benefit of $350 for families of four making between $45,000 and $64,000 a year, and an average benefit of $250 for families of four making between $64,000 and $85,000.
They are also calling on a large-scale investment in weatherization and retrofitting that would reduce energy use and costs, also creating tens of thousands of new green jobs, according to Hassell-Thompson.
Families would get up to $2,800 for a single-family household and up to $1,700 for a multiple family dwelling. This benefit is for low and middle-income families.
People are finding themselves paying three times more than last year, Smith said.
“I’ve been living here five years,” Pierre-Johnson said. “The first year I was here oil cost $200 every three or four months. My last fill-up for oil cost $800.
“How many jobs do we need to work just to keep up?” Pierre-Johnson added. “The government can do something. I’d like to thank the senators that put aside party and put our needs first. They are doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves.”
