So, I'm someone who grew up in extreme poverty. One program I don't see people talking about that really needs attention is LIHEAP, which assists in energy bills. This shutdown is threatening LIHEAP, and as winter approaches, people are going to be at risk. So! Coming from someone who would live without electricity and other utilities for long periods of time:
Put blankets over windows. If you can use thumbtacks to really get them up against the window, that's even better.
Close blinds to block air drafts.
Roll up towels and shove them under the gaps in your doors.
Stay together in a room with others, even pets. That shared heat between bodies helps. Picking a room with the least amount of exterior walls helps too.
In my experience, a hot bath with not help (you'll get cold when drying off, the heat dissipates quickly)
Your hands, head and feet lose heat the quickest.
Do not drink alcohol! It will not actually warm you up.
Try to move around every now and then if you are able to. Moving around will raise your body temperature.
Be safe, and hopefully this post ends up unnecessary.
I decided to repost this separately, in case anyone feels weird about reblogging the post about how it’s OK to scam the welfare system.
With energy prices expected to be brutal this winter, you should know that income limits for heating assistance may be higher than you think. (The following details are for the US heating assistance program--I know nothing about any other countries; sorry!)
It’s one of those “funded by the federal government, administered by the state” deals, so the limits do vary by state, but it can be up to 150% of the federal poverty level for your household size.
Here’s the income table for Pennsylvania, which uses the 150% maximum:
Some states do set their limits lower; the best way to find out the limit where you live is to Google “LIHEAP income limit StateName,” without quotation marks.
(LIHEAP stands for Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program; it’s the federal name for the program, so it should be findable under that name for every state, even if your state also has another name for it.)
Most forms of public assistance set their income limits at the poverty line or lower, but LIHEAP is intended to include people who are mostly getting by, but struggle with the extra expense of heating in the winter*. Therefore, you may qualify for LIHEAP even if you don’t qualify for any other program.
(*States where excessive heat/lack of AC can be dangerous to human health can also use the funds for summer energy assistance.)
Apart from the income limits, LIHEAP is open to anyone who pays for heat--whatever form of heat it is, and regardless of whether you own or rent your home. The money usually goes directly to your heating provider, whether that’s a utility (like for gas or electricity) or a vendor (like if you get oil or coal delivered).
The amount they give you varies by state too, but in mine, it can be up to $1500 for one winter.
Plus, sometimes they send out a surprise bonus amount to everyone who already got it--it happened once or twice during COVID, and again just recently, which I think was to do with the whole Ukraine/skyrocketing energy prices Situation. I got $500 worth of heat out of that one--just enough to get a delivery from the oil place and start up the furnace for the winter.)
As we approach a summer that may be among the hottest on record, Republicans are trying to cut programs that help the poor and the elderly s
Kate Aronoff at TNR:
As Republicans attempt to slash Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, drastic cuts to programs that ostensibly have nothing to do with climate change could put more people at risk of getting sick and dying from extreme heat.
Case in point is the relatively low-profile Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP. Created by Congress in 1981 as a means to help people afford the costs of heating and cooling their homes, it currently helps some 6.2 million people pay their bills. In early April, the Trump administration fired the program’s entire staff of fewer than 30 people, whose jobs were housed within Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services. Congress allocated $4.1 billion to LIHEAP this fiscal year, about 90 percent of which had already been distributed to states by the time the administration decided to purge its staff. That leaves $378 million left to be given out, and no one left to do it. The White House’s 2026 discretionary budget proposes eliminating LIHEAP altogether.
LIHEAP’s budget isn’t a massive line item for the federal government, but it could be the difference between life and death for those who depend on it to keep their homes from turning into ovens. Roughly two million households across the Northeast rely on the program. In some of those states, more than 50 percent of LIHEAP users are over the age of 60—populations that are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. One Virginia-wide study found that zip codes with higher percentages of residents 65 and older were associated with a 23 percent higher risk of heat-related emergency room visits and hospital admissions in high temperatures.
[...\
Soaring electricity bills force lower-income households to choose between keeping the air on and necessities like food and childcare. Discussions about Republican attacks on climate policy in recent weeks have focused mainly on the House’s budget bill, which would gut IRA programs that incentivize corporations and homeowners to invest in low-carbon manufacturing, energy-efficient appliances, and renewable energy. Yet that bill’s sweeping cuts to welfare state programs like Medicaid and SNAP benefits—which would kick tens of millions of people off both—could leave millions at risk of dying in heat waves in ways that are harder to track, as more people are forced to make dangerous trade-offs between staying cool, seeking out medical treatment, and putting food on the table.
These pressures are especially acute for the country’s 45 million renters. While states typically require landlords to keep renters’ homes above a certain temperature in the winter, there are many fewer provisions to protect tenants against extreme heat. Some historically hotter municipalities—like Tempe, Arizona, and New Orleans—have put in place cooling standards and maximum temperature ordinances, but such protections are rare. Even rarer are rules that keep landlords from raising rents by exorbitant amounts if they do install air conditioners.
More GOP insanity: Their budget bill seeks to put Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) on the chopping block, meaning that for low-income Americans that have to make a decision between paying electricity and food, it could be a decision between life and death.
Right-wing media have spent over a decade attacking and calling for cuts to vital food assistance programs, with particular focus on the Sup
Casey Wexler and Reed McMaster at MMFA:
Right-wing media have spent over a decade attacking and calling for cuts to vital food assistance programs, with particular focus on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as “food stamps”) as well as free school lunch programs.
Now, Project 2025 — an extreme right-wing initiative organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican presidential administration — proposes fulfilling their wish of cutting off hundreds of thousands of Americans from vital food assistance.
Project 2025 calls for sweeping cuts to the food stamp program, which would eliminate food assistance for some Americans and slash the purchasing power of families
Project 2025’s play book, Mandate for Leadership, calls for reimplementing work requirements for food stamps, which it estimates could put 688,000 adults at risk of losing food assistance. Project 2025 claims that these work requirements would be “fairly limited” but admits that the policy will deny some Americans food assistance. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis of Project 2025, “These requirements are premised on the false assumption that people who receive SNAP do not work and must be compelled to do so — an assumption rooted in a host of unfounded prejudices based on race, gender, disability status, and class. Rigorous studies have shown that the current work requirement policy is ineffective at increasing employment. Instead, it takes food assistance away from people with very low incomes and increases food insecurity and hardship.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/3/24]
Project 2025 seeks to remove automatic qualification for SNAP if an individual receives benefits from another government program or broad-based categorical eligibility. The authors of Mandate for Leadership are trying to end automatic eligibility for SNAP for those who receive other benefits because, they claim, “‘benefit’ is defined so broadly that it includes simply receiving distributed pamphlets and 1–800 numbers. This definition, with its low threshold to trigger a ‘benefit,’ allows individuals to bypass eligibility limits—particularly the asset requirement.” But a major benefit of broad-based categorical eligibility, according to CBPP, is helping families through the “benefit cliff,” when a family’s income rises just above the SNAP limit. Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to ignore the threshold and phase out SNAP benefits gradually as income increases. It also lets families keep higher levels of allowed assets, which allows them to “avoid debt, weather unexpected financial disruptions, and better prepare to support themselves in retirement.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 7/30/19]
Project 2025 attacks recent increases to the Thrifty Food Plan, which estimates the cost of a healthy diet, saying the Biden administration “may have skirted regulations and congressional authority to increase the overall cost of the program.” The Biden administration raised the budget of SNAP when it found higher costs in maintaining a healthy diet, which Project 2025 called “a dramatic overreach.” Mandate says the Thrifty Food Plan has previously been based on just inflation, which was proposed in the latest federal farm bill. According to the Urban Institute, “In effect, the proposed changes would reduce SNAP benefits’ purchasing power over time, exacerbating the current SNAP benefits gap.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Newsweek, 4/23/24; Urban Institute, 3/18/24;]
Project 2025 seeks to close the “heat-and-eat loophole” that allows states to issue larger amounts of food stamp benefits. Food stamps are issued based on income minus certain deductions, and beneficiaries of the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program receive a large deduction even if, according to Project 2025, their LIHEAP benefits are as low as $1 (in reality, as of 2014, LIHEAP benefits have to be $20 or more). LIHEAP helps households pay utility costs, and beneficiaries of the program can maximize their SNAP benefits on top of receiving utility assistance. The program was created because low-income households have a tendency to go without food due to high energy costs. Therefore eliminating this “loophole” entirely will create the food insecurity it was implemented to prevent. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Food Research and Action Center, 3/16/21; LIHEAP Clearinghouse, 2/21/24]
Project 2025's plans for food assistance are diabolical, as its agenda includes reinstation of broad-based categorical eligibility and the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
LIHEAP is one of the most critical components of the social safety net. The program provides heating and cooling assistance to roughly 6.7 million households. It is an exceptionally efficient and targeted program, with state block grants flowing to local agencies with specific clients on a short-term basis to prevent utility shutoffs or assistance with heating and cooling bills.
