This story is originally Appeared Christ and Climate desk collaboration.
The summer of 2021 was cruel to the residents of the Pacific Pacific. The city and temperature records of the local cities were broken from Portland, Washington, Washington. Several degrees. In Washington, 125 people died of heat -related diseases such as stroke and heart attacks, as 125 people were settled throughout the state.
Public officials recognize the imbalance on the low -income people of the heat, and those who are not accessible to the air conditioner have made a decisive change in the national air aid program. Since the early 1980s, stocks, tribes and territory have received funds to help low -income people in low -income people every year and install energy efficiency upgrades through low -income housing energy support programs or liheap. Congress will be deployed in the state in the late autumn of the program and the Ministry of Health and Welfare or HHS. Until the summer of 2021, the Initiative provided heating support in Washington’s cold winter. But that year, a civil servant Extended the program Cooling costs.
Last year, Congress made $ 4.1 billion efforts, and HHS spent 90 %of its funds. But this program is currently in danger.
Earlier this month, Robert F. Kennedy JR. HHS, led by the minister, fired 10,000 employees, including about 12 people who run Liheep. The agency had to spend an additional $ 378 million this year, but the fund is now trapped in a federal safe where employees do not need to move.
LiHeap helps about 6 million people to survive in the frozen winter and the summer, and many of them face more dangerous because the warm season of the year has already had an abnormally high temperature. Phoenix residents are expected to have them First 100 degrees One day now.
One of the HHS employees who worked in the LiHEAP program and recently fired recently said, “We see that warm weather is actually lacking in the funds that are necessary to help people in the summer. They said that losing people who run the program are” absolutely destructive. ” Because it helped, it is a very important support due to the irregular weather patterns of the country.
If Congress properly deals with LiHeap funds during the typical period, HHS distributes money in the fall during the cold month. Then the state and other groups then make a critical decision on the amount consumed during the winter and how much they save during the summer.
The need for LiHeap funds was always bigger than available. About one of the five households who meet the qualification requirements of the program receives funds. As a result, the state often lacks money until summer. Former employees say that at least a quarter of the LiHeap subsidy is lacking at some point, the former employee said.
