Councilmember Mike O’Brien, chairman of the Public Utilities and Neighborhoods committee, has launched a drive to make more low-income households aware of their eligibility for public utilities rate assistance. An estimated 55,000 households in Seattle are eligible for assistance—which would cut their utility bills in half—but only around 20% of them are taking advantage of the program.
O’Brien and his allies at Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) want to reach the other 80%. They are hosting sign-up events at five locations throughout the city and offering interpretation into 21 different languages.
How do you know if you qualify for assistance? You qualify if you meet (meaning are at or below) the following income guidelines:
- Seattle Public Utilities
Since the kickoff event was way the fuck down in Georgetown at St. Vincent de Paul, I wasn’t able to attend. After all, as Dominic likes to say, “That coffee isn’t going to retrieve itself from down the street.” However, I did get a chance to talk to Michael May, Senior Public Relations Specialist at SPU.
May told me they are hosting the sign-up events and providing interpretation services because many of the eligible customers don’t get their information through traditional channels and/or face a language barrier. Describing the basics of the program, he said, “You get 50% off your SPU or City Light bill for 18 months. You have to reapply or confirm your status after 18 months are up.”
Being the tax-hating market anarchist that I am, my biggest question was how depriving the city of utility bill payments might effect what is already a pretty gloomy budget. May did not know for certain but did say, “We are prepared to have people apply for this program,” indicating that there might be some contingency in place.
There is one important caveat—if you live in public housing of any sort, even federally subsidized housing, you are not eligible. You can get more details on a special page SPU has created.
Didn’t they try and distort the true market value of utilities before?
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSow…
Ah! I remember now. I guess now the new trend is to just give discounts on service given by a provider that could care less how well it’s doing the job at hand. At least new budget problems just get swept under the rug.
Maybe now if someone points out that this kind of program is creating problems we will see cries of opponents being “anti-electricity” or something.
Redistribution of the light!!
Aren’t there lights in the workhouses?!?
SOCIALISM!!!
Oftentimes the labyrinths of government are too hard too navigate for lower income people–because they’re too busy working multiple jobs, because their low income is due to a disability (chronic disease, mental health issue, addiction issue, etc.), or because they lack the education level to know about or make use of programs like this.
Governments routinely rely on this fact to reduce the cost of social programs, knowing that a large percentage of potential beneficiaries will never avail themselves of them.
If government really wanted to help as many people as possible with programs like this, it would revisit utility rate structures globally and reset rates accordingly *at point of billing.*
@ 3 – Good point Simac!
In the long run I don’t think certain parts of government actually want an affluent educated public. The military for example would benefit best if everyone where too poor and uneducated to do anything beyond joining the military or some other public sector job.
As you rightfully point out – government has no fear of running a deficit if the program it offers can’t be used by the common man.
Wow, that’s pretty generous. The total monthly income for one or two people puts you waaaaaaaay above the federal poverty line (which is, of course, incredibly low).
Right. It would be much better if those people were forced to pay their bills on high interest credit cards or bank loans. All the better for the wealthy to ensure that the lower-classes are firmly indebted to them for as long as possible.
Hell, why not let them take out a line of credit on their children? It’s never too early to become an indentured servant.
As long as you’re nice and warm this winter though… that’s all that matters.
This program is funded by city light customers who voluntarily donate money with every bill to Project Share. http://www.seattle.gov/light/help/share/
I figured they’d just charge the rest of us a little bit more to make up for the poor-people discount. Seems fair.
You don’t qualify if you live in subsidized housing.
This is generous. For example, a family with a mom and dad with two toddlers making $55,000 per year would be eligible. The median income in Seattle is about $55,000.
It doesn’t say net or gross monthly income, but if it is net, then we’re talking about folks who make about $60K a year.
I must be missing something.
This shows that market economics only come into play when there is perfect information.
Hidden information, no rationality.
Cf. The stock market.
@10 yes, generous to the population earning the median or below. how is there anything wrong with that?
not sure if you’ve raised two toddlers on $55K in this city, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. a little help with the water bill would be welcome.
@ 6 — Do you really think wealthy people sit around all day thinking of ways to enslave the poor? If you had said government bureaucrats do that, I’d be right there with you.
@ 7 — I think the program is partially funded by those donations, yes. People rounding up their bills from $75.36 to $76 and letting the city keep the difference is not going to pay too many utility bills, though.
City Light has some of the lowest rates in the nation. This is because “the people own the means of production”, so there are no investors to pay, and very little need to look beyond our dams and those of the BPA to meet our needs.
Rates could actually be lower, but they and the sale of surplus power subsidize the general fund (which is part of the city’s current budget woes – surplus power isn’t worth as much these days)
As far as the low-income rates are concerned, I don’t think that comes from Project Share (which is much more than the relatively new “round up” program.). I think it is built into the budget. You can only get money from Project Share once you have used up or been denied by the Feds, and you can only get $500 a year (although $500 can go a long way)
In addition, there are several churches and social service agencies that either pledge people’s power bill outright, or operate programs of their own. Those programs generally don’t care whether you are in subsidized housing or not.
God do I miss my Seattle utility bills. What I pay less in rent, I actually make up with in electricity, heat and water.
Oh and I pay twice as much in health care!
Fucking red state
@13,
You’ve never heard of debt peonage or sharecropping before?
Just because the courts made those specific things illegal (the evil government interfering in private affairs again!) doesn’t mean the wealthy don’t try to find ways around the law to keep people in debt. What do you think the credit card industry is in business for? To help people buy things? No, it’s to collect interest from them. For the rest of their lives, if possible.
Of course, the evil government is trying to put a stop to that too.
@7 Project Share is a different program offered through the same department. Project Share has the same income guidelines but is designed to assist eligible customers with their past due bills one every 12 months (if donated funds are available). The Utility Discount program give a 50% discount to eligible households on future bills.
The Utility discount program is really fairly easy to apply for 1) complete application 2) include last 3 months of income verification 3) copies of ID for all adults 18 yrs or older in the home 4) verification that your rent is not Federally subsidized.
How do I know so much? I wrote this on behalf of someone who works in the program.
@9 The reason subsidized households are not eligible for the discount is because they already have the costs for what they should pay for utilities calculated in their reduced rental amount. Therefore they cannot get 2 discounts for their utilities once (Federal & City).
Matt Luby is correct in assuming that if all of the people that might be eligible for this program were to apply, we will have some serious utility budget problems. The Discount Program cost the rate payers money. The utilities have already increased our rate twice and are planning on doing so again soon (and that’s before more people apply for the program).
Don’t get me wrong I thin the discount program is a wonderful program and can really help the people in the middle income brackets, but the utilities need to be honest and admit that it is going to cost the rate payers.
By the way, awesome article Matt and it is the most informative and accurate one I have seen so far. Even the Mayor’s press release wasn’t this informative….good job