How emergency energy assistance can stop a power shutoff for medical equipment
Emergency energy assistance can stop a power shutoff for medical equipment before it happens, through the crisis assistance part of the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP. The federal government describes the program, in plain terms on its own site, as help with heating or cooling bills or emergency services during an energy crisis. A typical LIHEAP grant is about 225 dollars, and a fact sheet published by the 2 national associations that run the program states that amount is often enough by itself to prevent a shutoff, because it goes straight toward the overdue balance a utility is threatening to cut power over.
How much money the program actually has right now
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is federal money that state agencies use to run their own crisis assistance rules. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents the state officials who run the program, reports that the current administration proposed eliminating LIHEAP entirely for fiscal year 2026, after firing the entire LIHEAP program staff at the Department of Health and Human Services on April 1, 2025. Despite that proposal, the Department of Health and Human Services released 3.7 billion dollars in LIHEAP funds on November 28, the real number describing what the program is funded at right now, not a figure anyone is still only asking for.
The fiscal year 2023 figure and the recommended target come from source 3. The fiscal year 2026 figure, the amount actually released so far, comes from source 2, dated November 28. The recommended target is an advocacy goal, not money the program has received.
Show the numbers
| Fiscal year 2023 total disbursed | 6.2 |
| Fiscal year 2026 funds released so far | 3.7 |
| Advocates recommended target for fiscal year 2026 | 5.1 |
How many households LIHEAP crisis assistance actually reaches
In fiscal year 2023, the most recent year with full figures, LIHEAP served 5.9 million households nationwide, according to the 2 national associations that publish figures on the program. An estimated 1.4 million of those households received crisis assistance specifically, the part of the program aimed at stopping a shutoff rather than routine heating or cooling help. Households that included a person with a disability made up 2.1 million of the 5.9 million served, about 36% under a calculation this publication ran itself from those 2 figures, a share no single source states directly.
These 3 groups overlap. A household receiving crisis assistance may also be a household that includes a disabled member. The 3 figures do not add to a total, and the 1.4 million crisis assistance figure is drawn from source 4, not source 3.
Show the numbers
| All households served | 5.9 |
| Received crisis assistance | 1.4 |
| Included a disabled member | 2.1 |
Our seniors and disabled customers on fixed income really have no wiggle room at all in their budgets.
Kayla Headrick, outreach worker, LIHEAP administering community action agency. Source 4.
Kayla Headrick, an outreach worker at a community action agency that helps run the program, says fixed income households have no room to absorb a missed payment. Her comment describes the same 2.1 million disabled and senior households the fiscal year 2023 figures count, the group crisis assistance is most often reaching.
Why a medical certificate is not the same as crisis assistance
A separate, unconnected protection also exists outside LIHEAP, and confusing the 2 can cost a household money it needed. Research from the Energy Justice Lab at Indiana University, reviewing statutes in all 50 states, finds that 45 of 50 states offer some legal protection against disconnection for a medical condition, and that 41 of those 45 require a medical certificate from a health professional before it applies. That protection only delays a shutoff while the paperwork is obtained. It does not pay the overdue balance, and the lab states plainly that utilities do not reliably honor even a promised certificate outside a handful of states. LIHEAP crisis assistance is the mechanism that actually pays money toward the debt itself, and a household facing a shutoff over medical equipment needs to know these are 2 different tools, not 1.