Mayor subsidizes heating bills for low-income families in city

Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez lent a helping hand to low-income families struggling with high heating bills Monday.\nAt a City Hall press conference Monday, he handed a $5,000 check to Jeanne Robinson, executive director of the South Central Community Action Program.\n"We don't want our citizens to be in a position where they have to choose between food and heat," he said. "If we don't act now to respond to this problem, people will be caught in an unnecessary downward economic spiral from which they may not recover." \nCAP assists low-income families with heating bills, which are unusually high because of the coldest winter in years and rising fuel prices. Serving Monroe, Morgan, Owen and Brown counties, the Bloomington-based office offers financial assistance to families whose income does not exceed 150 percent of the federal poverty levels.\nThe high heating costs have severely drained CAP's funds, Robinson said.\n"We're unable to allocate enough per household to provide for minimal winter heat," she said. "And individual allocations have not kept pace with the price of fuel. It is still just January and our resources are lagging far behind the demand."\nRobinson testified before the Monroe County Commissioners in early January that it is fast becoming a "crisis situation." Although the office is supposed to provide assistance through March 15, Robinson said it distributed 57 percent of its funding in December alone.\nIn Monroe County, Robinson said only $301,000 of $644,740 remains.\nWithout debate, the commissioners drafted a petition asking the state legislature for more funding.\n"This is a situation as bad as a tornado ripping through here," said commissioners' president Brian O'Neill. "And it's a matter we can prevent."\nIn the hope of securing state funding, Robinson met with local legislators, including State Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville. \n"We need to leverage revenue in whatever way we can," she said, noting that a bill offering emergency heating relief to low-income Hoosiers has already been filed in the General Assembly.\nJoking that he came up with the money "from the laser printer up in the mayor's office," Fernandez said it won't do much.\n"We hope these funds provide some immediate assistance while the flow of additional funds from the federal and state levels are being worked out," he said. "We realize our effort will not solve the entire problem. We want to stimulate other groups and persons in the community to come forward as well"