As Evansville-area utility bills rise, assistance programs struggle to keep up

And with more Evansville residents applying for funds through utility assistance programs, local aid organizations are struggling to keep up.

Locals started noticing higher monthly bills late last year, when lofty natural gas prices and a 271 percent increase in distribution fees caused CenterPoint Energy bills to nearly double in many households.

Then, at the beginning of March, the Indiana Regulatory Committee approved the city’s request to build a new, $220 million water treatment plant, which will increase water bills by 29.1 percent over the next five years.

Agencies say most of the utility requests they’re receiving is for help with energy bills.

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CenterPoint bills 'becoming unsustainable'

At the height of the pandemic, when the federal government was providing families with stimulus money and other subsidies, the number of assistance requests was significantly lower, said Joe Cook, executive director of the Evansville District of St. Vincent de Paul.

Recently, however, those needs are quickly reaching — and are likely to surpass — pre-pandemic levels.

“It is not unusual for us now to have someone call and say 'I owe $1,200 (or) I owe $1,800 to my CenterPoint (bill).' And unfortunately for us, now the number of requests …that are coming in are also increasing,” Cook said.

St. Vincent de Paul Society is a faith-based non-profit that provides various services to the community, including utility and rent assistance. Its Evansville district, which serves Vanderburgh, Warrick and Posey counties as well as the southern half of Gibson County, received 795 requests for energy assistance in the four-month period from Oct. 1, 2021 to Jan. 31, 2022.

That's compared to the 378 requests they received for rent help and 193 for water in the same time span.

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“It’s more than (a) two-to-one (ratio of) people needing help with mainly their CenterPoint bills as opposed to even needing help to avoid eviction,” Cook said.

During the same four months a year before, St. Vincent de Paul received 675 requests for energy assistance and 403 for rent. Though requests for energy assistance were 44 percent of the total number of requests in 2022 and 40 percent in 2021, Cook says he’s most concerned about the "astronomical" dollar amounts of the bills he’s seeing.

“It’s becoming unsustainable,” he said.

Applications have doubled

Another local aid agency, the Community Action Program of Evansville (CAPE),assists residents with things such as rent, housing and utilities.

According to Cynthia Balde, director of CAPE’s Energy Assistance Program, applications have doubled in 2022 compared to 2021.

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“We are seeing a lot of new customers this year that we haven’t seen before,” said Balde.

Because the organization’s money sources now require additional paperwork, applications are taking longer to process than in the past, leaving many candidates with longer-than-normal wait times.

Tai Monet, a single mother of a disabled child who was struggling to pay her $987 CenterPoint bill, says she applied for assistance in October and didn’t receive the money until the end of March.

Fortunately for Monet, after reading about her situation in the Courier & Press in February, an anonymous donor paid her bill’s balance in full.

Utility assistance budgets are “not never-ending”

Not everyone will be so lucky.

Kathryn Martin, trustee for Knight Township, worries that CenterPoint’s recent decision to suspend disconnections through the end of May will only lead to higher bills and more problems for struggling families and aid organizations alike.

“I am seeing people come to my office even just last month that have bills of $800 and $900, and now we’re going to give them until the end of May to not pay anything," she said. "Who’s going to be there? We are continuing to assist people, but our money is not never-ending."

Martin’s township is the largest in the city and serves 40% of Vanderburgh County.

According to the township’s disbursements report, in 2019,  more than $61,000 of its utility budget was used to help pay for district residents' energy bills, and more than $17,000 was spent on water bills. In 2020 and 2021, those numbers were lower, likely due to the influx of federal aid.

“Our roles kind of changed during COVID because the restriction that (was) placed on the COVID dollars coming out of the federal government was that (residents) could not utilize any other agency prior to going and getting that funding first,” Martin said.

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The Knight Township’s utility budget for 2022 is $83,360 – just over $4,500 higher than its pre-pandemic allotment. But even with the increase, Martin doesn’t expect agencies will be able to keep up after May 31 when disconnections are no longer suspended.

“If I’m seeing bills in February that are $800, what’s that going to mean for the end of May? Nobody’s budget can handle what’s going on,” she said.

The need has always been there

But not every agency has had the same experience.

Denise Seibert Townsend, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Evansville, says demand has exceeded her organization’s available resources, but she attributes it to the pandemic.

“We’ve noticed the need has increased really starting in 2020 when the pandemic started, and then since then there’s been periods of ebb and flow," she said. "But the need has always been there. ... I think we’re just hearing a lot more now, given the struggles that so many have faced with increasing costs. Not only utilities but in other areas of their household expenses, as well." 

According to Townsend, Catholic Charities gets about 100 to 200 assistance requests a week and is typically able to provide approved applicants with between $100,000 to $110,000 of rent and utility aid a year.

“Obviously we cannot serve that many people. We are in frequent communication with (other assistance organizations). If we can’t help we try to direct them to other agencies,” she said.

But the other agencies are falling behind, too.

"Unless there’s some concerted systemic effort, then no, the bills aren’t going to go down and the needs are going to continue to increase,” said Cook.