BUTTE — In Montana, you cannot survive without heat during the winter. So after the federal workforce that manages low-income energy assistance was fired recently, some individuals in Butte are wondering how they're going to survive in the winter if the program goes away.
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"People need to be scared. They need to be aware. They need to be alert. Wouldn't you be scared if a steamroller was coming at you and you can't move?" says Ina Gaye Fox, a 79-year-old senior who utilizes energy assistance.
Fox and her friend Patricia Martinez are part of the 4,395 people in six southwest Montana counties who receive assistance from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.
"Sometimes it gets 30 degrees below zero, and that space heater and the one in the kitchen, they'll be going full bore because I'm 74 years old and I don't want to be cold," says Patricia Martinez.
Martinez, a working senior who lives in an apartment Uptown, uses a sleeping bag to cover cold air drafts to be sure she stays within her energy assistance budget that is granted from October through April.
"This is a lifeline program. This is about lives and health and safety. To not have heat in Montana, to not have cooling assistance in the climates in the United States? People can actually die because the funding cannot get down to the levels it needs to," says Margie Seccomb.
Seccomb is the CEO of Action Inc., the nonprofit that helps seniors, working families and people with disabilities make payments or weatherize their homes with money from the federal government administered by the state. She says they have enough funding for recipients this year.
"The concern is that if there is no staff at the federal level to process, say, the draw downs that our state makes, then they cannot draw down funds; those payments cannot be made and then we have people potentially getting shut off notices from the utility company," says Seccomb.
Gaye Fox and Martinez exchange books as they chat in the living room. They say they've worked their whole lives and have contributed to the state and national economy, but on their current incomes, they are now unable to afford to keep their homes heated.
"You're riding on the backs of the people. At least keep the peoples' backs covered and warm," says Gaye Fox.
Questions to the Montana Department of Health and Human Services about the fate of LIHEAP were not answered by the time of publication.
