With mild winter, demands just different

By Darhiana M. Mateo The Courier-Journal

Sharon Eckler, executive director of the Eastern Area Community Ministries, is breathing a sigh of relief—for now.

January is usually a tough month for the 15 community ministries groups across Louisville, but the mild winter the city has been enjoying so far has made it more bearable.

“Every warm day above 40 degrees is a blessing,” Eckler said.

Although the ministries are seeing less demand for assistance with heat and electricity bills, other needs - such as rent, food and medication - are climbing. And as residents’ need for help rises, so does the ministries’ need for donations of money, food, clothing and other types of support.

In Shively, the demand for food is “huge,” said Roxanna Trivitt, executive director of the Shively Area Ministries.

Kate Husk, emergency assistance social worker with the South Louisville Community Ministries, said the most pressing need is for money to help pay for rent, utilities, food and medication.

Husk said the South Louisville ministries deal with a lot of seasonal workers who were laid off when winter hit. Many of their clients are disabled. Those who work often take home no more than about $300 a month.

“Their bills are very close to, if not exceeding, their income,” Husk said. “Most of our clients live so close to the edge that the moment there’s a crisis, like their car breaks down or a health problem, it throws them over the edge.”

Mike Jupin, executive director of the South Louisville ministries, said that “income levels of the folks we’re seeing have not risen to keep up with the cost of inflation.”

Linda Bickel has turned to Highland Community Ministries for assistance — for food and help paying utilities and rent — on and off for more than 20 years.

Bickel is the sole caregiver and provider for her daughter Lindsay, 24, who suffers from a severe case of cerebral palsy.

“It’s not easy asking for help, but you have to,” Bickel said. “I used to say, `Oh, we’re OK.’ We’re not OK.”

Lynn Humphrey, program director with Highlands Community Ministries, said her agency’s most pressing need is rent assistance.

Highlands Community Ministries serves about 600 families a year but sees them multiple times for different needs. About 45 percent of its clients are disabled, and 40 percent are seasonal workers. Others are between jobs, or “God forbid … they got sick” and were laid off.

Humphrey and Eckler, whose ministries are located in eastern Louisville areas that are seen as having more affluent residents, emphasized that pockets of poverty exist throughout the city.

“Need is need. You can’t put a ZIP code on that,” Humphrey said.

Eckler, of Eastern Area Community Ministries, echoed Humphrey’s sentiments. “I fight the perception every day that there’s no poverty in the East End,” she said.

Gayle Collins, executive director for Southwest Community Ministries, emphasized the need of the ministries to find long-term, systematic solutions, “rather than continuing to put Band-Aids on the situation as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.”

In western Louisville, families are still reeling from last year’s big increase in gas bills — which, in some cases, were triple the amount of previous years.

Jocelyn Watson, assistant director of programs, said West Louisville Community Ministries sees more than 700 people a year, not including people the agency turns away because of a lack of resources.

Most of them need help paying their gas and electricity bills. Although their bills aren’t as high as last year’s, they’re still more than many working poor families can afford, Watson said.

“The problem is just as critical even if the bill is not as large,” she said.

While the mild winter and extra resources have relieved some of the pressure at Fern Creek/Highview United Ministries, “the needs are still there and are still great,” said the Rev. Ron Loughry, executive director. “Most of the people we’re helping are the working poor. Something happens — now they have to divert money that would go toward bills like their LG&E,” he said. “We try to … help them get through that.”

Besides the warmer weather, extra federal heating assistance money has helped relieve pressure on the ministries.

In Shively, for example, the ministries assisted 17 people with their heat and electricity bills this month through Monday, compared with 80 last January.

Since Jan. 8, a federal energy assistance program run through the Community Action Partnership has been giving families up to $250 toward their Louisville Gas & Electric bills if they are in danger of having their utilities turned off. The maximum previously had been $125.

The program already has given more than $330,000 to families in need, officials said. The program will continue through March 31, unless its money runs out earlier.

Another program, Winter Help, in which LG&E collects and matches donations from customers to go toward the utility bills of needy families, runs through the end of April. The company collects donations from customers each month and forwards the money to the community ministries and Community Winter Help Inc., a nonprofit group.

The ministries are bracing for the time when the heating assistance programs expire and the ministries themselves become the first line of defense.

“Once they run out,” said Trivitt of Shively Area Ministries, “we’ll be the next in line.”

Reporter Darhiana M. Mateo can be reached at (502) 582-7086.