Heatwaves and Hardship: Shortcomings and Solutions for Enhancing the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to Mitigate Extreme Heat and Energy Insecurity

Abstract

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) must adapt and evolve to keep pace with the challenges posed by climate change and increased economic strain. Urgent action is needed to improve LIHEAP to effectively address extreme heat and energy insecurity faced by low-income households and protect the health and well-being of disadvantaged groups spurred by climate change. In evaluating LIHEAP’s shortcomings, we demonstrate that there is a substantial gap between program eligibility and enrollment, such that many households are not receiving this vital benefit or do so mainly when facing a crisis. We also show that LIHEAP funds overwhelmingly support cold-weather states even as record-breaking heat is a critical stressor. The spatial mismatch we unveil shows that southern states receive less LIHEAP funds despite higher cooling degree days and higher rates of energy insecurity. The importance of swift action based on sound data and up-to-date research can enhance the efficacy of LIHEAP, expand its reach, and ultimately improve the living conditions of millions of energy insecure households. We offer several recommendations to improve LIHEAP to ensure that this critical lifeline program remains an effective tool to mitigate energy insecurity and safeguard livelihoods in the face of extreme heat.

1. Introduction

The global outlook on energy affordability is grim (Monschauer & Bizeul, 2023). Factors such as inflation, climate change, and conflict are all influencing energy prices (Guan et al., 2023). Energy consumers are experiencing higher bills and growing concerns about how they will afford to keep the lights on, especially as the cost of other goods and services such as housing and food continues to rise as well (Whiting, 2022). Government officials throughout Europe—where the threat of exorbitant energy prices has been most acute—have encouraged residents to conserve energy wherever possible by lowering the thermostat and taking showers in tepid water (Bloomberg News, 2022). While energy burdens are lower in the US than almost all other major global economies except Canada (Monschauer & Bizeul, 2023), millions of American households make personal sacrifices around comfort on a daily basis to save on their bills even in the absence of emergent global crises (Hernández, 2016; Cong et al., 2022; Simes et al., 2023).

In the US, approximately 30 million households—one in every four—are energy-insecure, meaning they are unable to adequately meet their household energy needs (Hernández, 2023; U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2023). Energy insecurity is a multidimensional construct reflecting economic burden, the physical condition of housing, and coping strategies people use to manage energy-related hardships (Hernández, 2016). Households impacted by energy insecurity often make trade-offs between basic necessities such as forgoing food or medicine to pay for utility bills, thereby spurring a heat-or-eat dilemma (Bhattacharya et al., 2003) and energy limiting behavior (Cong et al., 2022; Kwon et al., 2023). Many also experience thermal discomfort, keeping their home at an unhealthy temperature (Huang et al., 2023) and contending with inefficiencies such as poor insulation or faulty heating and cooling systems (Bednar et al., 2017; Reames, 2016). Furthermore, energy-insecure households face the risk of utility service disconnections due to bill non-payment (Hernández & Laird, 2022). Some literature also points to cumulative burdens, indicating that energy insecurity co-exists with food insecurity, housing hardship, and internet burdens (Chen et al., 2022; Hernández et al., 2016). Moreover, energy insecurity disproportionately impacts certain populations, especially low-income groups, renters, and Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color (Chen et al., 2022; Hernández et al., 2016; Hernández & Laird, 2022; Lewis et al., 2020). Not only is energy insecurity an economically and experientially challenging phenomenon, but it also is associated with adverse mental and physical health outcomes (Hernández & Siegel, 2019; Jessel et al., 2019; Mayer & Smith, 2022) and can be fatal particularly for those facing extreme heat without air conditioning (Iverson et al., 2020).

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is the principal social service program intended to reduce energy insecurity in the US (Nishi et al., 2023; Thompson, 2016). Historically, energy assistance programs emerged during the 1970s oil crisis to help low-income households cope with high heating costs. Congress enacted the Low Income Energy Assistance Program as part of the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in 1980, with a focus on weatherization to reduce oil dependency by enhancing energy efficiency in the home. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 introduced LIHEAP as an offshoot of the weatherization program, which focused on energy conservation through efficiency measures such as insulation. The Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, as it was then known, was designed as a financial assistance program which sought to help low- and moderate-income Americans pay for heating bills. In addition to covering heating costs, LIHEAP was designed with a crisis intervention component to prevent or respond to shut-offs or heating appliance breakdowns. LIHEAP funds are also used to promote energy literacy, provide cooling equipment, or implement weatherization interventions to increase efficiency.

LIHEAP has remained mostly unchanged since its inception more than 40 years ago (Nishi et al., 2023). It is still primarily a heating assistance program with significant gaps in the number of people served despite eligibility. Furthermore, the funding formula that guides resource allocations is out of step with rising temperatures due to climate change and increased energy costs. It is time to modernize LIHEAP. By exposing LIHEAP’s shortcomings, we seek to point to solutions for improving this important lifeline to energy access and climate mitigation for energy insecure households across the country. In this piece we evaluated the peer-reviewed and gray literature on LIHEAP, including government documents and datasets. We leveraged our familiarity with the program, the literature on energy insecurity, and publicly available data to outline the 1) fundamentals of LIHEAP, 2) the program’s shortcomings, and 3) potential solutions. Visualizations were generated from publicly available tools unless otherwise noted. In those cases: temperature data were drawn from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records for heating and cooling degree days and LIHEAP funding was drawn from the LIHEAP Data Warehouse. The authors used R and the ggplot2 package to generate these visualizations (R Core Team, 2023; Wickham, 2016).

2. The Fundamentals of LIHEAP

2.1. LIHEAP Funding Breakdown

In keeping with the goal to reduce household energy burden, LIHEAP funding allocations are divided into four primary categories: 1) heating, 2) cooling, 3) crisis, and 4) weatherization. Crisis support is broken down by season, and there is a modest level of year-round assistance. Over the past two decades, most LIHEAP assistance funds have been allocated towards heating (Figure 1). Most crisis aid is also distributed during the winter season. While allocations for cooling assistance have progressively increased over the years, it still accounted for only 10.7% of assistance funding in 2021. Year-round and crisis funding represent only 24.2% of funding, whereas weatherization makes up 9.8% of funding.

Figure 1:

Percentage of LIHEAP assistance funds by end use across the US in 2001–2020. Source: LIHEAP Data Warehouse. (color requested)

2.2. ‘Old’ and ‘New’ LIHEAP Formulas

As a block grant program to states, LIHEAP distributes funds based on a blend of formulas and algorithms. While detailed explanation of these calculations and their specific applications can be found elsewhere (Bechler, 2021), they can be broadly categorized as the 1981 and 1984 formulas, sometimes referred to as the “old” and “new” formulas, respectively (Perl, 2019). The 1981 formula was derived from a mix of overall energy expenditures, specifically for heating, the number of low-income households, and the number of heating degree days in a state. This formula does not account for summer cooling demand. The Human Services Reauthorization Act of 1984 introduced cooling assistance to redistribute funding to also support warm-weather states. The “new” 1984 formula was designed to be more dynamic, drawing on data from the most recent Residential Energy Consumption Surveys (RECS), as well as weather and climate data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (including heating and cooling degree days), census data, and other diverse datasets (Perl, 2019).

Notably, the proportional division of funding derived from the 1981 formula is static—this means that LIHEAP funds to this day are dispersed using information from the late 1970s (Kaiser & Pulsipher, 2003). Allocations according to the 1984 formula assimilate more recent weather and climatological data on state-level cooling and heating degree days, energy expenditures, and the number of poor households (Bechler, 2021; Perl, 2019). These factors together are more likely to triangulate today’s energy-insecure households rather than dated proportions derived using 1970s data. However, the 1984 formula is only activated when a higher funding threshold is met, at which point more funding may be made available based on cooling demand.

Figure 2 depicts LIHEAP appropriations in 2009–2019. On average, the US allocated $3.2–$4.5 billion annually to LIHEAP in this period (Perl, 2019). Both formulas have been used to allot funds, but functionally the 1981 formula dominates by allotting the first $2 billion. Subsequent dollars are allotted based on a “hold harmless” provision, meaning that no state can be allotted less than it would have been provided under a $2 billion appropriation. Remaining funds are administered according to the 1984 formula. As a result, an annual maximum of $840 million has ever been allocated according to the 1984 formula. At its peak during the housing crisis of the late 2000s (2009–2011), only 18% of allocations were dispersed according to the 1984 formula.

Figure 2:

LIHEAP appropriations in 2009–2019. Total allocations according to the 1981 formula are in gray, and those according to the 1984 formula are in orange. Source: Created by authors based on data from Perl, 2019.

3. LIHEAP Shortcomings

LIHEAP has several major shortcomings. First, while millions of households meet the program’s income eligibility standards, only a small fraction receive benefits. Second, the emphasis on crisis support places households at risk of lacking access to energy, which is at odds with the fundamental premise of the program. Third, LIHEAP continues to operate primarily as a heating assistance program despite the increasing relevance of cooling and overall high energy costs. Fourth, there is a spatial mismatch between states with high energy insecurity rates and low LIHEAP allocations, in part due to cold-weather bias inherent to the program.

3.1. Eligibility–Enrollment Gap

LIHEAP annually serves more than 6 million households (Figure 3). On average, approximately 5.4 million households received heating assistance and 760,000 households received cooling aid each year in 2011–2021. Over the past decade, the number of households receiving cooling benefits has remained constant, while those receiving heating benefits has decreased by more than 30%, despite the number of eligible households having stayed relatively constant (Administration for Children & Families, 2023).

Figure 3:

Eligible households and total population receiving heating and cooling benefits. Source: LIHEAP Data Warehouse. (color requested)

Millions of low-income households in the US are eligible for LIHEAP, yet only a small percentage of those eligible receive subsidies. This is, in large part, because LIHEAP is a needs-based block grant rather than an insurance-based entitlement program (GAO, 1983). Medicare, social security and unemployment benefits, which are insurance-based, are distributed on the basis of personal contributions and/or contributions made on behalf of the beneficiary by employers or through government funding. In contrast, LIHEAP and other needs-based programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid and supplemental security income (SSI), are administered on the basis of income, assets or specific circumstances that would render a household in need of government assistance to meet the basic necessities of life. More specifically, LIHEAP is administered as a block grant program in which states are given a designated amount of funding based on the new and old formulas as previously explained. Benefits are limited to LIHEAP dollars received by states and passed on to grantees, often community action agencies, to assist eligible households until funds run out. It is common for states to use up the entirety of the allocation, primarily due to restrictions on rolling over excess funds (Nishi et al., forthcoming).

Eligibility and disbursement procedures and allocations are state-specific, as outlined by each state’s LIHEAP Detailed Model Plans (Nishi et al., 2023). There is general, high-level guidance from the federal government that reflect the overall goals of the program including that funds are to be used for the purposes of 1) helping households with demonstrated financial hardship to meet their energy needs; 2) intervening during household energy crises; and 3) prioritizing the neediest households for assistance; while 4) only allocating at most ten percent to administrative costs (Perl, 2019). Outside of these stipulations and a handful of others, state beneficiaries have significant latitude in designing programs and determining eligibility (Nishi et al., 2023). Though as we discuss in the section that follows, the overall funding allocation for LIHEAP is smaller than other needs-based entitlement programs, which severely limits the program’s reach.

One critical limitation of the program is how few eligible households receive assistance. While state and federal income standards fluctuate, only 15%–20% of qualified households receive heating or cooling assistance through LIHEAP (NAEDA, 2021; Thompson, 2016). This enrollment gap among eligible households translates into unmet need and hardship for millions of US households. When households do receive funds, they are on average $462–547 for heating or cooling-related bill assistance per year, which is likely no more than several months’ worth of support depending on local utility costs (Administration for Children & Families, 2023). Moreover, in many states LIHEAP remains a seasonally-based program, which means that households receive assistance primarily in the “heating season,” even though utility bills are generally dispersed monthly. This is likely a relic of wintertime oil deliveries and the heating oil crisis that spawned the LIHEAP program at its start.

3.2. Crisis Aid

In addition to heating and cooling assistance, LIHEAP is designed to respond to crises. Recent research demonstrates that households often do not seek energy assistance services until crisis hits (i.e., insurmountable debt, receipt of a disconnection notice, or shut-off due to non-payment). Hernández and Laird (2021) analyzed RECS data to examine the prevalence of disconnection notices and service disconnections due to non-payment and corresponding coping strategies such as forgoing necessities such as food or medicine, keeping homes at an unhealthy temperatures and/or seeking and receiving energy assistance in the US. The authors show that as the threat of disconnection increases, the types and combination of coping strategies that are activated magnify. Related to LIHEAP, this study found that individuals in possession of a disconnection notice or facing a disconnection were more likely to seek and receive energy assistance. It is important to note here that RECS only reports on households that applied and received energy assistance, so it is possible that many more sought LIHEAP benefits but did not receive them.

Simes et al., 2023 relied on qualitative accounts of energy assistance program participants to demonstrate that many benefit recipients did all they could to manage energy hardships on their own accord. The authors illustrate the enactment of “vigilant conservation” of energy and non-energy resources including restrictive energy rationing to keep bills low and limiting other household expenses to be able to make ends meet. Many study participants described having exhausted all other channels of self-reliance and network support before turning to energy assistance resources. For these participants, crisis would often spur the urgency to apply for benefits. This study further indicated that eligible households did not seek services due to perceptions of resources as scarce and being cognizant that others might be experiencing greater need. In addition, the administrative burden was also a major deterrent, especially as people were reaching out for help under circumstances of duress.

LIHEAP issues crisis support year-round and during the winter and summer seasons. Historically, year-round crisis support has been lowest and winter crisis assistance was highest as measured by average household benefits (Nishi et al., 2023). However, winter and summer crisis assistance leveled off in 2014 and has been steadily higher during summers, reaching its peak in 2021. Interestingly, year-round crisis has also been on the rise and for the first time ever, exceeded winter crisis assistance in 2021. Of note, 2021 coincided with protections and added funding for LIHEAP as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which more than doubled program funding (Nishi et al., forthcoming; Bednar and Reames, 2022).

3.3. Spatial Mismatch

Another critical challenge facing LIHEAP is mismatch between the location of hardship versus where funds are currently distributed. State measures of energy insecurity vary substantially when considering different indicators such as receiving a disconnection notice, keeping the home at an unhealthy temperature, and forgoing food or medicine to pay utility bills (Hernández and Laird, 2022). When looking across these indicators using data from RECS, energy insecurity is highest in states where weather is extreme and where larger segments of the population are affected by poverty. This is particularly true in Southern and Midwestern states (Figure 4). A comparison of LIHEAP absolute funding allocations by state (Figure 5) to energy insecurity by state (Figure 4) reveals significant spatial mismatch, most notably in warm-weather states with higher energy insecurity but significantly less LIHEAP funding as is the case in many southern states.

Figure 4:

Energy insecurity in the US. Data are based on the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (2020). Source: Energy Insecurity Dashboard.

Figure 5:

Total LIHEAP funding by state in 2021. Source: LIHEAP Data Warehouse.

There are various explanations for this spatial mismatch. First, though southern states pay lower electricity rates on average than states in northeast and western regions, the cooling season is longer and becoming more intense because of rising temperatures stemming from climate change. Part of the mismatch is also rooted in the LIHEAP funding formula, which is based on a combination of factors such as the percentage of state residents living in poverty and meteorological conditions, namely heating and cooling degree days.¹

3.4. Cold Weather Bias

As previously mentioned, LIHEAP arose from a crisis in which heating fuels were expensive and in short supply and during a time when many homes in cold-weather states were warmed with heating oil. While we are well past the oil crisis and far fewer homes use heating oil, LIHEAP’s original focus on heating continues to permeate the program’s design and funding allocations (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2023).

Since the program’s inception, most LIHEAP funding is received by states in traditionally colder climates including the Northeast and Midwest (Figure 6). Further, funds are unevenly distributed after accounting for differences in the number of poor households per state and how cold or hot a state’s weather was in 2021. States are roughly even in funding per heating degree days, meaning that allocations are tuned to the realities of milder cold seasons in southern states. However, in terms of cooling degree days, northern states receive a disproportionate share of funding.

Figure 6:

Funding (US$) per federally eligible person per heating degree day (top) and cooling degree day (bottom) in 2021. Total federal allocations were $3.7 billion. Source: Visualization created by the authors. Degree days from NOAA; funding and LIHEAP eligibility data from LIHEAP Data Warehouse. (color requested)

Northern states appear to receive more financing than southern states, particularly considering southern states experience warmer summers. Following these discrepancies in funding allocations are differences in unmet need regarding energy insecurity. For example, in 2021 New York received $935 million and served 45.1% of income-eligible households, whereas Texas received $307 million and served only 4.6% of eligible households (Administration for Children & Families, 2023). Prioritizing cold-weather states over warm-weather states is antiquated thinking, as extreme heat is only worsening with climate change and it exacts a major toll on human health including increasing the risk of death especially among vulnerable populations (Son et al., 2019; Tong et al., 2021). Further, extreme heat not only impacts southern “warm-weather” states but also northern “cold-weather” states—thus we need data-driven solutions to better target funding and improve LIHEAP beyond the heating season. Although some people may be familiar with the heat-or-eat dilemma during winter months, we must start to acknowledge heat and hardship differently. With increasing temperatures, individuals are increasingly confronted with the “heat stroke or go broke” predicament.

4. Solutions to Improve LIHEAP

As shown above, LIHEAP is under-enrolled, crisis-based, spatially mismatched, and cold-weather-biased. Nevertheless, these are addressable problems. What follows are some suggestions to expand LIHEAP’s reach.

4.1. Administrative Burdens and Enrollment Processes

Recent research has demonstrated that administrative barriers including the application process and paperwork required to establish eligibility is a substantial deterrent to program enrollment (Graff & Pirog, 2019). Simes et al., 2023 further note that administrative burdens prove especially challenging to navigate for households also managing cumulative burdens across various domains of life (i.e., housing, food, employment, etc.). Therefore, efforts to streamline LIHEAP application processes including cross-enrollment, categorical eligibility, and automatic renewals can go a long way in assisting households that are otherwise eligible to access benefits. In fact, categorical eligibility based on other social assistance programs is associated with improved program efficiency and increased participation, particularly for heating assistance (Graff, 2024). This would be a step in the right direction of reducing administrative burdens but increasing uptake of such strategies across all states and devising other approaches to increasing program participation are also necessary to close the eligibility-enrollment gap.

4.2. Crisis Prevention, not Crisis Response

LIHEAP’s crisis intervention mandate is designed to respond to emergency situations that would jeopardize access to energy. Given the need to set priorities among applicants amid constrained program resources, it is understandable that disconnection notices and disconnections due to non-payment would be a solid basis by which to triage cases. The problem with this approach, however, is that it can inadvertently incentivize households in need to enter crisis territory without much guarantee of support. This risky approach can lead to a frenzied activation of coping strategies (Hernández & Laird, 2022) that can, in turn, be detrimental to life and health, and in some contexts can have a further destabilizing effect should the lack of utility services trigger the loss of housing. As indicated by the growing number of households receiving emergency assistance in recent years throughout the year and in summer months, unmet needs are translating into crises. Designing LIHEAP to prevent rather than respond to crisis is a necessary step in averting unnecessary risk and hardship for energy insecure households.

4.3. Bolster Cooling Assistance

In the summer of 2022, the Office of Community Services at the US Department of Health and Human Services released recommendations to state grantees, urging them to utilize LIHEAP funding effectively to reduce heat-related stress (Administration for Children & Families, 2022). The suggestions emphasized reallocation of existing resources towards cooling assistance, instructing LIHEAP state beneficiaries to reopen registration throughout the summer and use any remaining funds to provide crisis support, help obtain or maintain air conditioning devices, and expand educational opportunities concerning cooling safety, efficiency, and health. This guidance was based on the idea that programs had surplus funds that could be redirected to cooling initiatives instead of allocating additional funding for LIHEAP’s cooling assistance component. Given the escalating severity of extreme heat, it is imperative for LIHEAP to explore more formal methods to enhance its cooling efforts through additional funding and implementation of policy mandates rather than mere guidance, so that states are obligated—not just encouraged—to address cooling hardships within LIHEAP. Cooling assistance in some states is restricted to distribution of air conditioning units. An expanded cooling assistance component should also prioritize bill assistance since operational costs remain a barrier to air conditioning use among energy-insecure households even after receipt of air conditioning units (Lane et al., 2023).

4.4. Heat and Eat – LIHEAP plus SNAP

Congress has appropriated an average annual budget of $3.4 billion towards LIHEAP since 2001. Yet this is only a fraction of dollars spent on programs that theoretically target the same population (i.e., have same eligibility criteria) such as SNAP. Distinct from LIHEAP as a block-grant program, SNAP is an entitlement program with an annual average budget equal to approximately 1.3% of federal spending (more than $110 billion in 2021), and 82% of eligible households received assistance in 2019 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2019). However, as previously mentioned, the annual budget for LIHEAP only reaches 15%–20% of eligible households each year (NAEDA, 2021; Thompson, 2016).

Prior research has shown that receipt of LIHEAP benefits helps ensure that households are more food-secure (Frank et al., 2006). In turn, food-related aid, namely a combination of SNAP and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits, is associated with greater household energy security (Hernández & Siegel, 2019). SNAP and LIHEAP have the same eligibility criteria, suggesting the huge gap in LIHEAP enrollment could be closed with 1) outreach methods similar to or coupled with SNAP, 2) cross-enrollment across both programs, and 3) additional funding for LIHEAP that places it on par with SNAP. If LIHEAP increases its reach to SNAP levels, recipient households stand to benefit in multiple ways that can preserve their health and well-being.

4.5. Balance Spatial Apportionment with the 1984 Formula

LIHEAP needs more funding to meet the needs of energy insecure families nationwide in a warming climate. However, there is an immediate opportunity to target existing funding more strategically. One approach is to replace the 1981 formula with the 1984 formula and remove the hold harmless provision to direct more funding towards warm-weather states. As noted, the 1984 formula incorporates more recent and diverse data including measures of energy consumption for low-income households, local heating and cooling demand, and total energy spending. These are all highly relevant to triangulating the geographies of energy insecurity.

Permanently adopting the 1984 formula better positions energy assistance funding to maximally support low-income households in a changing climate and energy landscape. Passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 offers incentives for household energy transitions (i.e., electrification), consequently shifting the energy mix but likely at different rates throughout the country. In this situation, the 1984 formula is primed to support low-income families. For example, the cost of electricity varies substantially across states. Electricity is the most germane fuel type for cooling, and increasingly heating as well due to the proliferation of heat pumps. The 1984 formula thus is a vital policy tool to combat energy insecurity in a changing climate as we seek longer-term solutions.

4.6. Leverage Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Resources

Weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades are commonsense strategies to reduce overall energy demand in the current energy energy transition and simultaneously save households money on monthly energy expenditures. Integrating weatherization and enhancing household energy efficiency can also maximize the impact of billing assistance. By prioritizing such measures, homes can be equipped to reduce costs and increase efficiency, especially considering the high expenses associated with cooling. While LIHEAP has an embedded energy efficiency component, states can choose the amount to allocate to this, and it is a very small aspect of the overall program. Moreover, energy efficiency through the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) is within the US Department of Energy, as opposed to US Health and Human Services— but both are often administered by local Community Actions Agencies. So, while WAP and LIHEAP seek to target the same recipient pool, the programs run in parallel. Better coordination of bill assistance and energy efficiency services at the local level could enhance the opportunity to reduce energy insecurity and overcome under-enrollment issues in both WAP and LIHEAP (Fowlie et al., 2015; Simes et al., 2023).

Moreover, this approach also can be applied to implementation of decarbonization efforts, including initiatives such as the IRA, which has the potential to support energy insecure households in transitioning to cleaner and more efficient technologies. In particular, the IRA includes a substantial amount of funding— $4.5 billion— designated for direct rebates specifically targeting low- and middle-income households to facilitate energy efficiency and electrification upgrades. These upgrades are anticipated to result in significant monthly energy cost savings for households. Consequently, the demand for LIHEAP could potentially decrease as household energy burdens decrease—LIHEAP funds then could be used more efficiently, extending their reach to benefit more households.

4.7. Structural Change

The suggested solutions enhance LIHEAP by optimizing resource allocation, but they mostly retain its current structure and design. We support the premise that LIHEAP would benefit from thoughtful modernization utilizing decades of additional scholarship and experience to create a more robust program as argued elsewhere (Hernández, 2023). A full policy prescription falls beyond the scope of this article but some places to start on this journey include 1) reducing administrative burdens by streamlining application processing and automating enrollment wherever possible; 2) redesignating LIHEAP from a block grant program to an entitlement benefit so that more people are able to participate in the program; 3) shifting from a seasonal distribution of benefits rooted in cold weather to monthly disbursements that align with bill payments; and 4) moving to a preventive model of aid rather than crisis support. Reimagining LIHEAP will take more than these steps and while the needs of energy insecure households are urgent, we are not in a comparable moment of crisis that shaped the program at its inception. A thoughtful LIHEAP redesign would require input from across the professional spectrum with substantive expertise on energy insecurity, climate change, public health, and social service provision as well as contributions from impacted communities with user experience. These experts should be brought together in a facilitated process geared towards strengthening the program and ensuring that it solves today’s energy hardships for the poor and underserved in the face of climate change.

4.8. Future Directions for Researchers and Policy Analysts

There are numerous opportunities for research to inform policy in relation to LIHEAP and related benefit programs. There are only a few quantitative and mixed-methods policy evaluations of the LIHEAP program (Drehobl & Ross, 2016; Murray & Mills, 2014; Simes et al., 2023). Most of the comprehensive LIHEAP evaluations either dated, exist in the grey literature and/or limited in the outcomes they report. For instance, despite the known links between energy insecurity and health, LIHEAP evaluations conducted to date have not incorporated health outcomes (Murray & Mills, 2014). Such evaluations are instrumental in assessing the relative impact and cost-effectiveness of the program, as skillfully demonstrated in evaluations of WAP (Tonn et al., 2018). Relatedly, researchers can and should conduct state-level and cross-country comparisons of strategies used to reduce energy insecurity to establish best practices in this policy and programmatic arena. These comparisons can be instructive to understand creative and cost-effective ways to mitigate energy insecurity in the U.S. and beyond. Finally, studies should be conducted to identify the potential for braided funding approaches across benefit programs, as promoted by community groups such as Green and Health Homes Initiative (Norton & Brown, 2014). For example, in New York State a pilot program is underway to assess the effectiveness of energy efficiency and weatherization initiatives for Medicaid enrollees with asthma. The goal is to demonstrate whether such upgrades are a net cost-savings if they are funded by Medicaid. If effective, similarly innovative approaches can be applied within the context of LIHEAP to assess impacts on health, medical expenditures and household energy security.

5. Conclusion and Policy Implications

A warming climate calls for more strategic investments in human welfare. Immediate action is required to improve LIHEAP and protect energy insecure households, namely by increasing LIHEAP appropriations for energy-insecure households. Some of our recommendations to enhance LIHEAP include reducing administrative burdens by streamlining application processing and automating enrollment wherever possible; shifting from a seasonal distribution of benefits rooted in cold weather to monthly disbursements that align with bill payments; and moving to a preventive model of aid rather than crisis support. Further, Congress should consider updating the allocation scheme for LIHEAP by either using the 1984 formula or creating a new formula based on updated climate, health, and energy insecurity research. Our changing climate necessitates comprehensive and well-funded programs to safeguard the health of the most vulnerable Americans. It is crucial to prioritize this issue and advocate for an improved allocation scheme that effectively addresses the needs of energy insecure households facing extreme heat and hardship.