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Area charities are working to ensure that wintertime necessities are available for low-income residents during cold weather.

Warm clothes are not a problem, said Sonny Consiglio, executive director of the St. Vincent dePaul Society of the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.

The society’s thrift stores have plenty of clothing year-round, and fall and winter items are out on the racks, he said.

Consiglio asks that donors bring clothing during store hours and not dump them in front of the building, where they are picked over and precipitation soaks and ruins items, forcing the society to have it hauled away.

Family Services Inc. also takes clothing donations, keeping enough at its three shelters — one for men, one for domestic abuse victims and one for teen runaways — to supply clients who arrive only with what’s on their backs. They then can get on with their lives at work, in school and in all types of weather. The organization sends the excess to St. Vincent’s, executive director Mahlon Fiscel said.

Shelter is more difficult to provide, Consiglio said.

If someone is living on the street or in a car, they can get by during the summer, but living in a car in January can be intolerable, he said.

His agency provides stopgap housing. People who know they’re going to be evicted can’t get into shelters until they actually are homeless. They may take a day or two to get admitted even after eviction, he said. St. Vincent’s can provide money for a day or two in a motel.

While Family Services has the shelters, it’s having trouble funding the annual $150,000 cost for the men’s house on Eighth Avenue.

Ironically, the problem is the national housing bust, which has depleted the county’s “affordable housing fund.” The fund relies on fees on mortgages and deed transfers. There’s a $30,000 shortfall for the current fiscal year, despite grants from a foundation, Blair County United Way and three faith-based organizations, Fiscel said.

“We keep chipping away,” he said.

The winter heat issue is even more complicated, said Sister Celeste Ciesielka of Catholic Charities.

The government Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program administered by the county assistance office is the anchor program, available to families with incomes of less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level, she said.

Dominion Peoples Gas and Penelec operate Dollar Energy to help those threatened with termination of gas or electric service, offering a maximum grant of $500, provided they owe at least $100, meet income guidelines and have been making a good-faith effort to pay, Ciesielka said.

Gas bills in drafty houses can rise to $700 a month, she said. It can drive people to risky alternatives such as heating a single room with a kerosene or electric heater or using an open stove for room heat.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides emergency food and shelter money that can help with utility shutoffs, but the county fund is depleted, she said.

Fuel oil is the biggest problem because there isn’t the equivalent of a Dollar Energy program, and many companies require a $150 minimum order, Ciesielka said.

Catholic Charities can’t afford the necessary $300 or more for a minimum delivery, so it tries to work with other agencies and the family to share the cost, she said.

Last year especially was difficult because a fuel oil shortage led many vendors to refuse to serve any but regular customers, forcing the agency to “scrimp and save” and “call everybody possible,” Ciesielka said.

People sometimes try to keep burners going by filling them 5 or 10 gallons at a time with cans, she said.

Winter brings holidays, which means more donor generosity, but more expectations, too.

American Rescue Workers in Hollidaysburg asks residents to “adopt” children of its regular food pantry families for Christmas, choosing presents for them based on their wish lists, Capt. Evangeline Subisak said.

Families of children not adopted receive presents donated by churches.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler

is at 949-7038.

 

 

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