Published: December 02, 2008 08:50 pm            

CASE keeps residents warm this winter

BLUEFIELD — The number of area residents in need of emergency heating assistance continues to grow.

Community Action of South Eastern WV has already responded to more than 35 reports of families with no heat, CASE Executive Director Oraetta Hubbard said.

“If someone is totally out of heat, we respond to them within 24 hours to check out the situation and take them some ceramic heaters,” Hubbard said of the assistance available through the Energy Crisis Intervention Program provided by CASE. “We’ve had a minimum of 35 (reports) within the past month or so. Ceramic heaters are delivered to the individual or family.”

With fall starting to look more and more like winter, Hubbard said the demand for heating assistance will most likely continue to grow.

Hubbard said officials also are seeing a large increase in requests for home weatherization assistance. While the program has been awarded funding to provide weatherization to 137 households in Mercer, Summers, Monroe and Raleigh counties, more than 300 families are currently on a weatherization waiting list, Hubbard said.

Hubbard said weatherization kits will be delivered to low-income families beginning next week.

“We also do tips on low cost, or no cost measures you can do yourself to weatherize your house, or to make it more energy efficient,” Hubbard said. “We will be distributing kits to those who have applied for them next week.”

Hubbard said area residents can take simple steps to properly weatherize their homes.

“The number one measure when we go in a house is to stop infiltration,” Hubbard said. “A lot (of heat) is lost around the windows. And weather stripping — that can easily be put up.”

CASE also serves as an outreach station where applications for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program can be accepted. The application deadline for LIEAP assistance began on Monday, and will end on Friday, Dec. 12.

The LIEAP program helps eligible households with the cost of home heating through cash payments or payments to utility companies on their behalf.

In anticipation of a difficult winter, Hubbard said CASE has formed a “Communities in Action” partnership. Hubbard said the goal of the community collaboration is to respond to the rising cost of living faced by those on fixed or limited incomes, particularly with heating fuel and utilities.

“We are trying to put together what we are calling a CIA, or Communities in Action,” Hubbard said. “When we identify or someone else can identify a particular situation we feel will effect the community in a broad-based fashion, then we can pull together all of the different segments of the community to handle whatever the emergency may be”

— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com

        

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