State officials say average funds available per household will increase to $1,000 this year, and applications will be accepted through the end of May.

By Diane Bustamante

The state of Illinois made changes to financial assistance programs to help families pay utility bills which are expected to be higher than usual this year. / Photo shows utility towers and power lines running along a flat winter landscape. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The number of Illinois residents who struggled to pay their utility bills increased during the pandemic—families receiving utility assistance from the state went from 250,000 in 2019 to 289,000 in 2020. Black- and Latinx-majority ZIP codes were hardest hit. A recent Tufts University study found that these ZIP codes were about four times more likely to be disconnected for nonpayment, two to three times more likely to be on deferred payment plans and 70 percent more likely to participate in low-income utility assistance programs.

The state responded by expanding eligibility for Low-income Household Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and other critical services, making an additional 1 million residents eligible for assistance, increasing available funds per household and providing funds for previously ineligible undocumented families. Utilities are not allowed to turn off power or heat to any customer during the winter moratorium (each year from December 1 to March 31), even if they have overdue bills. But to avoid a large bill coming due in the spring, the state is urging residents to apply for assistance while funds remain.

These changes are part of the state’s ongoing attempts to support families in danger of losing critical services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last spring, Illinois ran the Utilities Disconnection Avoidance Program, to fast-track payments to utilities on behalf of people who were about to have their power or gas turned off. ​​Nearly $37 million of the total UDAP payments—about a third of the $112 million—went to Chicago's South and West Sides.

David Wortman, a deputy director in the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, administers these two utility-assistance programs. City Bureau sat down with Wortman to discuss how these programs address the needs of low-income residents who are vulnerable to utility debt and disconnections, and how Illinois residents can navigate the utility system and access aid. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

To apply for utility assistance, go to www.helpillinoisfamilies.com or contact the hotline service, which provides assistance in over 30 languages, at 1-833-711-0374.

The Illinois DCEO administers the utility assistance programs LIHEAP and UDAP. What are the main differences between these programs? 

LIHEAP is a federal program that is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is a winter heating program and applications run from Sept. 1 to May 31 [while funds remain]. There are two components to LIHEAP. One is what is called the direct vendor payment, that’s a one-time payment to assist anyone who’s income qualified, and the other is reconnection assistance for emergency assistance. 

UDAP was a one-time program that was in reaction to the [utility] shut-off moratorium ending last March. We started seeing what our budget was going to be and realized that we were still going to have funding available. At the same time, we were hearing about the number of shut-offs that were coming. The regular LIHEAP program wasn't going to react fast enough. That's when we started working with the six largest utility companies in the state, including Peoples Gas and ComEd, to come up with the idea of UDAP. Through this program, we asked the utilities to go through their systems and identify the people on their shut-off list that were recipients of LIHEAP in the last three years in order to credit their account. 

UDAP identifies people who are on disconnection lists to pay their debt. Why did you set up the program this way and what is the intended impact?

Normally we fund CEDA (Cook County’s Community and Economic Development Association), CEDA sits down with the person and they fill out an application, then CEDA sends a message to the utility company to credit this account for this amount. So the money goes from DCEO to CEDA to the utility company. 

In comparison, UDAP requires the state to be in direct communication with the utility companies and write a check that is sent straight to them, which makes it much faster for the [past due bills] to be cleared. 

This was all done, start to finish, in six weeks. It took a lot of cooperation but the outcome speaks for itself—112,000 accounts that were in danger of disconnection were cleared.

What challenges does the Illinois DCEO face in reaching people who may need help? 

Prior to COVID, nearly all applications were done face-to-face with an intake worker. There's a step of documentation that takes place where you have to submit your social security card, your pay stubs for income and your utility bill. Trying to teach people how to take a picture of their electricity bill and upload it has made the remote application process a challenge, and it's something that we continue to work on. 

For the population that may be eligible but that doesn't get to us, we work with local agencies. CEDA does outreach by working with intake sites that are nonprofits, some faith-based, some community-based, to get the word out. 

We also put together HelpIllinoisFamilies.com, which directs you to our website to request assistance.

In March 2020, the Illinois Commerce Commision started requiring utility companies to report monthly data on customers. What light do these reports shed on utility companies and their customers? 

We use them to try to analyze the data to make sure that our funding is going to the places most in need. We know by ZIP code where our LIHEAP clients are, but now we know where people who are behind on their payments are, and we know where people who are in danger of disconnection are. If we see a discrepancy in serving the population that is in need, we can reach out to the agencies to focus on that area. If we see that there’s an area of the state [with] a high level of poverty but our LIHEAP numbers are different, then we would know to target our marketing campaign in that area. Any data that we can get that gives us information on where our services are most needed, we're going to use that to try to push the services to those areas.

What steps were taken to expand LIHEAP in response to COVID-19? 

The legislature and the governor signed a bill that allowed us to expand the LIHEAP population. We raised the [threshold for qualifying for this program] to households making 200 percent of the federal poverty level, where previously it was 0 percent to 150 percent. For the first time in the state of Illinois, we made it accessible for families regardless of immigration status. The benefit matrix changed; this year the average amount that households can receive in assistance is going to be over $1,000. 

At the end of the program year 2021 we made a supplemental payment of $100 per account that was directly credited to each LIHEAP recipient’s bill. If a household had an electric and gas account, they received $200 in credit, $100 for each service. This was funded through the American Rescue Plan Funding.

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