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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

HEAP Helps Ohioans Beat the Winter Heating Blues

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Monday, March 7, 2011   

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Hundreds of thousands of Ohioans have been able to keep warm this winter, thanks to a program that's been in increasingly high demand. According to the Ohio Department of Development, there were nearly 6,000 more applications this year compared to last year for the Home Energy Assistance Program, HEAP, designed to help eligible Ohioans meet the high costs of home heating.

Carrie Kochensparger, community service coordinator with LEADS Community Action Agency in Licking County says many of their clients are new to the program and were struggling to get by when they reached a crisis situation.

"Having the fear of your gas or your electric being shut off in the peak of winter when it's the coldest ... Just a minor thing will throw a wrench in their budget, and then they'll have a disconnect, and that's when we come in."

Kochensparger says clients have been coming with much higher utility bills than last year, and that the aid program is much needed in Ohio.

"I don't know how, for our future customers who will be seeking assistance, what is going to be there to help them, and what are our alternatives if there isn't a program or HEAP or Winter Crisis there to help them."

Services similar to those provided by LEADS are available in every county in Ohio. While HEAP provides one-time payment assistance, the Winter Crisis Program provides one-time assistance to households facing a disconnect notice from their utility. HEAP is a federally-funded program and so far this year in Ohio more than 377,000 clients received assistance.

In addition to help from HEAP, The Ohio Fuel Fund Grant Program offers funding for agencies to help customers that have already used their emergency and regular HEAP benefits. Recently, over $1.7 million in fuel funds were released to programs operated by utility companies Columbia Gas of Ohio, DP&L, and Duke Energy.



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