The recent cold snap has brought with its rock-heavy snow and breathtakingly icy winds the reminder of how lucky the majority of us are to have warm homes in which we can hide away until the temperatures rise again.
Of course, not all of us can rely on such comforts, and things break at the worst of times. Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) are charged with overseeing the program designed to step in and help. If your heating gives out or is in need of repair and you meet the income qualification you should be able to reach out, and they can fix things free of charge. A family of four meets those requirements if the combined income is below $66,000.
However, the program is federally funded and there’s not enough money to go around, apparently. Due to the lack of resources and the rise in requests for help there’s a waiting list that means that your heating won’t get fixed until summertime, by which time you may as well get them to check your air conditioning too.
There is another option in the Special Loans Program (SLP) that provides low interest loans of up to $50,000 for general home repairs, and it does include fixing the heating.
For reasons known only to those at DHCD, their website has dubbed the aforementioned no-cost repair program the Maryland Energy Assistance Program (MEAP). All well and good until you have functioning heating but can’t afford to pay the bills and learn there is MEAP as defined by the Office of Home Energy Programs (OHEP). They declare that MEAP “provides financial assistance with home heating bills. Payments are made to the fuel supplier and utility company on the customer’s behalf”. This tallies with COMAR in the description of its purpose.
What’s in a name? Regardless, OHEP’s MEAP is seemingly not as financially constrained as the DHCD’s version and if you need assistance with paying those bills you can apply here: Applying For Energy Assistance? – Maryland Department of Human Services
To read about DHCD’s programs you can go here: MEAP