Funding will provide winter heating assistance to low income Iowans
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, announced today that Iowa has been awarded $4,847,522 through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The emergency contingency funding will help eligible low-income Iowans meet home energy costs, and is in addition to the $67.8 million Senator Harkin secured for the state in Fiscal Year 2010 from the LIHEAP block grant.
"Winter can be a desperate time for people in need, and this has been a particularly brutal winter in Iowa," Senator Harkin said. "This funding will help thousands of low income households, especially those with young children and elderly, make it through the season."
On January 7, 2010, Senator Harkin joined a bipartisan group of 48 senators in sending a letter to the President urging him to release the emergency LIHEAP funding. The full text of the letter can be found here.
In 2008, 95,234 Iowan households received LIHEAP assistance - one of the highest numbers on record. A nationwide survey of households receiving LIHEAP aid found that 42 percent of recipients went without medical or dental insurance and 32 percent went without food for at least one day.
