By Keith Benman, Times of Northwest Indiana
keith.benman@nwi.com
Already late to start, Indiana's stimulus-funded home weatherization program is scrambling to get up to speed and meet its goal of improving energy efficiency in 8,661 homes by June.
The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority says so far 1,577 homes statewide are either "in process" or have been completed. Still, that's just 18 percent of the number the agency wants completed by May 30.
"What we have seen in the first two and a half months is nothing like what we will see in the next three months," Paul Krievens, weatherization program manager, said.
To get the work done, the authority distributed stimulus grants totaling $55 million to weatherization programs run by 30 local agencies and organizations across Indiana.
Households with incomes under 150 percent of the federal poverty level can qualify for the stimulus-funded weatherization, which can include insulation, sealing and even furnace replacement. For example, a family of four with an annual income of $33,075 would qualify.
The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority was about three months late in distributing the stimulus funds because the federal government questioned several components of Indiana's plan, including its intent to spend up to $5,000 per home rather than the $6,500 limit Congress set.
The politically powerful Indiana Builders Association won the largest single grant of $20.7 million to weatherize homes in more than 35 counties. CEO Rick Wajda said the association hopes to complete weatherization of 3,000 homes by May.
"We are cautiously optimistic," Wajda said.
Wajda said he did not know if any homes were yet completed, although the association has received responses from 1,000 qualifying homeowners seeking services in the first six weeks of the program.
So far, in the first three months of its stimulus-funded weatherizations, the Northwest Indiana Community Action Corp. has completed work on 81 homes and 110 more are ready to be worked on. Those homes represent 34.4 percent of the 555 homes the agency plans to complete by May using $3.4 million in stimulus funds.
"It was like a little bit 'this is terrific,' but it's also a huge challenge to our organization because it is such a huge increase," said Jane Hopkins, who oversees the agency's home weatherization program.
Northwest Indiana Community Action usually has just $1 million to $1.2 million per year to spend on weatherization.
Giselle Jackson, 50, of East Chicago, is one of the people who already had her home weatherized under the Northwest Indiana Community Action program.
Contractors installed a new furnace, caulked all windows and doors and insulated the home. She counts on saving about 50 percent on winter energy bills, which can run $500 to $600 per month.
She and the elderly parents she cares for can already feel the difference.
"My mother was saying they have an electric heater in their room and they had to turn it off because it's too warm in there," she said days after the work was completed.
For contractors, the stimulus money is helping them through one of the roughest patches in decades for small businesses.
Indiana Spray Foam owner Mike Young, whose firm worked on Jackson's home, said he hired five more workers to keep up with the increased work from stimulus weatherization projects.
"The reason is we picked up the Community Action group's work. So anything we were down we substituted this, so it's helped us out," Young said.
The state will have about $65 million more to spend directly on weatherizations once the first installment of $55 million in stimulus money is spent, Krievens said. His agency wants all the money spent by May 2011.
"Everyone knows the Obama administration has a commitment to lessening our nation's energy dependEnce, but I don't think anyone foresaw funding moving to this level," Krievens said.