Washington (April 11, 2018) – Massachusetts Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren today asked the Department of Health and Human Services to immediately release the remaining ten percent of Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) funds, amounting to approximately $337 million, to help families in Massachusetts and across the nation who need help heating and cooling their homes. Massachusetts has received nearly $130 million in LIHEAP funding thus far this year. Nearly 200,000 Massachusetts families – including households with seniors, the disabled, and veterans – rely on LIHEAP each year to afford their home energy costs.  

“The LIHEAP program is wildly successful and vitally important to millions of families across the country and hundreds of thousands in our state of Massachusetts,” write Senators Markey and Warren in their letter to Secretary Alex Azar. “Now that Congress has passed a funding bill for the entire fiscal year and increased funding for the program by $250 million, there is no reason why the rest of the LIHEAP funding should not be released immediately.”

A copy of the Senators’ letter can be found HERE.

The LIHEAP program serves approximately 200,000 of Massachusetts’s neediest and most vulnerable families. Nationwide, roughly 33 percent of households receiving LIHEAP assistance had at least one member 60 years of age or older, 38 percent of households had at least one member with a disability, and 19 percent of households included at least one child five years of age or younger.

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