Massachusetts Senators request remaining LIHEAP funding for Massachusetts families

Washington (May 22, 2017) – Massachusetts Democratic Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren today asked Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to release the remaining ten percent of Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) funds, amounting to approximately $300 million, to help families in Massachusetts and across the nation who need help heating and cooling their homes. Massachusetts has received nearly $131 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.

“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 Tom Price. “Now that Congress has passed a funding bill for the entire fiscal year, there is no reason why the final 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.