Carcieri’s compassionate gambit A gubernatorial committee targets the perennial problem of poor Rhode Islanders losing their heat in winter BY BRIAN C. JONES

IS THIS THE year that the heat will stay on in Rhode Island?

The state annually struggles with a problem as predictable as New England slush: hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families go cold in the winter because they can’t pay their heating bills (see "Why do we let people freeze in winter?," News, November 14, 2003). What’s different this year is an effort, spearheaded by Governor Donald L. Carcieri, that has the possibility of figuring out how to end many heating shutoffs.

The Republican governor has organized a big committee — the utility and oil companies, community advocacy groups, and charitable and "faith" organizations — both to get the heat turned back on this winter for the neediest households, and more importantly, to explore an effective solution for the future. Although the faith-based initiatives embraced by President George W. Bush seemingly stem from a desire to eliminate government-backed programs, Carcieri’s effort constitutes a pretty good attempt at solving an intractable problem.

Headed by the Reverend John E. Holt, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, the committee has elements of a successful coalition pulled together by Carcieri two years ago to help victims of the Station nightclub fire.

At the table are such credible and powerhouse as the United Way of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Foundation, and Rhode Island Kids Count. The committee — which doesn’t have a formal name — can tap enormous financial resources, and, moreover, if it does reach a consensus for a long-term solution, it has the lobbying clout to push its recommendations. As Hank Sennott, a United Way spokesman, puts it, if the group does agree on a prescription, the state’s leaders will have to pay attention: "It’s going to be tough to say, ‘No, we don’t think so.’ "

Having a broad-based group press for a solution is a positive development, says Henry Shelton, director of the George Wiley Center, a Pawtucket organization that works on solutions to poverty. Shelton, a former Roman Catholic priest who has been a relentless advocate for the poor for five decades, has made ending heating shutoffs a principal crusade, and he sees the Holt committee as bringing effective reinforcements. "I’m hoping this can be a more friendly atmosphere," says Shelton, who is on the panel and who saw attempted shutoff solutions founder in the past two years at both the state Public Utilities Commission and the General Assembly.

The Carcieri-organized group already has shown its muscle in its handling of the short-term end issue: getting service restored for several hundred households considered the most "vulnerable" in coping with the loss of heat.

The study committee created its own fund, administered by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, to help householders make the down payments on back bills — some totaling thousands of dollars — needed before utility crews will turn service back on. The United Way donated $50,000 to the effort. Once natural gas or electricity is restored for these households with low-income, sick, unemployed, or elderly residents, a state moratorium takes hold — which prohibits further shutoffs between November 1 and April 15.

This is a more aggressive approach to getting homes reconnected than has been used in the past.

The real task, however, is finding a long-range solution, to break the off-and-on-and-off cycle that thousands of families and individuals experience throughout the year.

Many familiar with the issue believe a permanent solution will involve millions of dollars in subsidies to struggling households, and the riddle is who will pay the bill.

Should utility ratepayers be charged more? Should the General Assembly raise taxes? Can the difference be made up with charitable fundraisers? As Holt puts it, "If this was solved easily, somebody could have solved it along time ago. These are not easy things to fix."

WHAT COULD MAKE a difference this time, though, is Carcieri’s approach, bringing a host of state organizations into the process, with the weight of his office adding credibility to the discussions.

The shutoff committee includes the United Way; the Rhode Island Foundation; Kids Count; the Rhode Island Community Food Bank; Family Services of Rhode Island; the secretary of state’s office; a host of state agencies, as well as the utility companies; the Oil Heat Institute of Rhode Island; People’s Power & Light; the Salvation Army; the West Bay Community Action Program; the George Wiley Center; the Council of Churches; and the Diocese of Providence.

The new panel has outlines of how Carcieri handled the response to the 2003 Station nightclub fire, in which a coalition, also headed by Reverend Holt, oversaw the raising and distribution of $3.2 million in donations for survivors and families of the 100 people who died as a result of the catastrophe.

Carcieri seems comfortable with having "faith-based" groups work on social issues. In the 1980s, between stints as an Old Stone Bank executive and CEO of Cookson America, he directed regional operations in Jamaica for Catholic Relief Services. Nor is it Carcieri’s first run at the shutoff issue. Last year, he committed $35,000 from his office’s contingency funds to help families make down payments for utility service resumption.

In addition, the governor and his wife, Suzanne, organized a Celebrate Rhode Island Ball that raised $24,000 for heating assistance, and this year, a similar event was scheduled January 7 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings in Warwick, with a goal of bringing in $35,000.

In fact, Carcieri says, he and his wife organized a revolving loan fund in their hometown of East Greenwich many years ago, in cooperation with local churches, to provide heating assistance to local residents. "We saw how a little bit of money can help, really help somebody over the hump, if you will, at a difficult time," he says, adding that the problem is much larger when viewed from a state perspective. The shutoff issue also offers a chance for Carcieri to take the lead in attacking a difficult social problem. In his first two years in office, he has often been criticized for proposing cuts in welfare benefits and fighting efforts by home-based child care workers to unionize as state employees.

Holt, meanwhile, brings a peacemaker’s approach to the shutoff debate, which in the past has spawned emotional demonstrations, outbursts during Public Utilities Commission hearings, and sharp divisions between community advocates and the utilities.

"My personal philosophy is that most people are good people," Holt says, "and they want to do the right thing. I’ve found that the PUC, the utility companies, the advocates, the governor’s office — they are good people. Nobody wants anybody, the truly needy, to be cold. No human being, unless morally bankrupt, would want that." Holt believes the utility companies should not be painted as the bad guys — the companies’ bills, after all, have to be paid. But residents facing shutoffs shouldn’t be blamed, either, he says, for not having enough money.

Christopher J. Medici, a spokesman for New England Gas, says, "The overall tenor has been constructive." He adds that the utility understands how the problems of low-income families are complex. "Asking families to pay their back bills over 12 months, plus their current usage," Medici says, "comes down to the fact that households are being asked to pay a significant percentage of their income to energy costs. I don’t think anyone disputes it’s a difficult situation."