Low Income Heating Help

HUGHESTOWN – Ever since she and her husband purchased their home five years ago, Jennifer Policare has waged a losing battle to keep the warm in and cold out.

She put plastic over her windows. She put towels around the base of doors. She lowered her thermostat when the family was out of the house and at night as they slept.

The efforts helped a little, but when Policare saw ice forming on the inside of her pantry windows last winter, she knew she had to do more.

The problem: How to pay for the new doors and windows her 75-year-old home needed.

The solution: The weatherization assistance program offered by the Commission on Economic Opportunity.

Last week, Policare watched as a team of construction workers from CEO installed three doors, two windows and several other energy-saving improvements, all free, inside her Searle Street home.

CEO has helped low- to moderate-income families weatherize their homes for decades. Funded by a $1.3 million state grant, the agency expects to aid roughly 600 Luzerne County homeowners this year, said Executive Director Gene Brady.

The work ranges from tuning up a furnace and installing weather stripping and caulking, to the more complicated jobs like Policare’s. The average cost per home to the agency is roughly $1,900 in materials and manpower, Brady said.

Families or singles with income at or below 150 percent of the poverty line are eligible for the assistance. For a typical family of four, that equates to $29,025. There’s a waiting list of about 300 families, but the agency works through them fairly quickly, Brady said. The wait time from application to installation is about a year, he said.