Angela Harmon and her grandson Leo headed out on a hot day in Dallas, Texas, to a neighborhood store that is run by their church. It’s where they keep cool because running Harmon’s air conditioner at home is more than she can afford.
“It’s costly, it’s expensive, and I have to juggle to pay it,” Harmon told CBS News, disclosing that her daughter sometimes has to assist her in paying her electricity bills.
“Many of our community members are very, very low income,” said Chris Simmons, Harmon’s pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church.
“Many of them, if they have added health conditions, may not survive,” Simmons said of his congregants who cannot afford air conditioning. “They may not survive.”
To pay her utility bills last year, Harmon relied on the federal government’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP, a utility assistance program through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that serves more than six million Americans.
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