It should not come as any great surprise to the reader that this program is open only to the legal residents of the sovereign State of Louisiana. It should also not come as any great surprise to anyone curious about this program that the state of Louisiana has some rather specific expectations and criteria to qualify a household or group for assistance with heating costs. To qualify the Louisiana resident must be elderly, and or disabled, and or a family with children, and or have a very high energy consumption rate and cost. To qualify the resident or residence income criteria is:
The annual income of a household with a single individual must not exceed $17,455 before taxes;
The annual income of a household with two individuals must not exceed $22,826 before taxes;
The annual income of a household with three individuals must not exceed $28,196 before taxes;
The annual income of a household with four individuals must not exceed $33,567 before taxes;
The annual income of a household with five individuals must not exceed $38,938 before taxes;
The annual income of a household with six individuals must not exceed $44,308 before taxes;
It is unclear as to what happens if a household exceeds six members. The amount goes up about $5,400 as another individual is added to the household.
If one has a computer then there are a number of websites from which an application can be taken. The form cannot be submitted electronically so an interested person must have a printer to be able to print out the application form. As with anything government, fill out the application very carefully and very truthfully. If there are any questions or concerns, contact the aid agency by phone and obtain whatever clarification is necessary to successfully and complete fill out the application form. State governments, just like the federal government, greatly dislike the liar. The states will typically pursue the liar for fraud and provide jail time if at all possible. States, like the feds, have very little humor. After filling out the form, mail it in to the contact address in the directions and then just be patient. Experienced people stated that one or two weeks will go by before the aid agency gets in contact with the household. The contact will tell the head of the household if the household qualifies and if it does qualify, what steps are next in the process.
A goodly number of source and information websites were specifically pointed out by the experts and given support by site users. For the readers’ convenience these URLs are listed as follows:
http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/programs/energy_assistance/low_income_energy.php
http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/downloads/energy/en-LiheapAppAssistance-03Dec04.pdf
http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/downloads/lihtc/liheap-2006-state-plan-02aug05.pdf
http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/downloads/energy/ea-incomeeligibility-19dec03.pdf
http://www.lhfa.state.la.us/downloads/energy/ea-Introduction-07apr05.pdf
The aid agencies are very good about providing what the household needs, knowing that it is simply keeping those who need it as warm and comfortable as possible. Several people indicated that at first the need for assistance was in a strong struggle with one’s ego and embarrassment. It is a nice aspect of the states to recognize those who do need assistance and provide what they can to assist.