This chapter describes a “Three-Step Approach” to restoring and maintaining electric and gas service. The Three-Step Approach runs somewhat counter to the way many front-line staff go about addressing utility problems. Frequently, front-line staff begin their efforts by looking for sources of assistance that can help pay the utility bill. In the Three-Step Approach, finding money is actually the last step an advocate should take.
The three steps are as follows:
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Step 1: Determine whether the client may be eligible for a “protection” that keeps the utility account from being terminated and requires already terminated service to be restored.
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Those protections include: (1) serious illness, (2) winter moratorium, (3) infant, and (4) elderly.
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If there is such a protection, make sure the utility is aware of the client’s protected status.
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Step 2: Reduce the bill as much as possible through application of the discount rate and use a payment plan to reduce the monthly payment burden.
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Step 3: Only after asserting any available protections and reducing the bills as much as possible, look for sources that will help pay the utility bill.
The reason to follow these three steps is that asserting protections does not require any payments up front from either the client or any agency assisting the client. Service can be protected (or restored) quickly, even if it takes some additional time to find help in paying the bills. In addition, payment assistance sources are so scarce that they should be used only after the account has been protected and the bills reduced as much as possible.
Each of the three steps is described more fully in the following chapters. At the outset, however, it is important to note that it is always essential to determine: whether anyone in the customer’s household is seriously ill; whether there is a child under the age of 12 months; or whether every adult in the house is over the age of 65. If these circumstances exist, the serious illness, infant, or elderly protections may apply. Moreover, if the date is between November 15 and March 15 (or even later), it is also possible that the winter moratorium applies.