With the middle of January now upon the area, the importance of the Missouri Low-Income Weatherization Assistance Program, or LIWAP, stands out more than ever.
Gary Nichols, the weatherization and home repair director for the South Central Missouri Community Action Agency, spoke about that and other ways the SCMCAA helps low-income residents weatherize their homes at Thursday’s Butler County Community Resource Council’s monthly partnership meeting. The meeting was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nichols told the 30-plus attendees via Zoom that low-income residents spend, on average, 16.3% of their income on heating, in part because the homes of low-income homes are often not well weatherized.
“Over the years, LIWAP has changed the way we look at homes,” Nichols said. “In the past, we went into the home and made sure that all appliances were working properly and added insulation. Today, the quality of measures installed in a home has been improved with new diagnostics, including a computer program showing the measures that will be most cost-effective to install to improve the energy efficiency of the home.”
LIWAP had its genesis in 1977, when the Missouri Department of Natural Resources established the program as a response to the energy crisis that occurred earlier that decade. The program provides cost-effective and energy efficient home improvements to low income households in the state, with a goal of lower utility bills and improving comfort while protecting health and safety.
According to LIWAP, for every dollar invested in weatherization, it returns $1.72 in energy savings and also returns $2.78 in non-energy benefits to others, including households and communities through several things, including increased health and safety of homeowners, fewer missed days of work and school and also through local businesses supported by the activities of the LIWAP.
But LIWAP is not the only tool that the SCMCAA utilizes in weatherizing homes. Nichols spoke of a pair of grants that are administered through Missouri Housing Development Commission — the Missouri Housing Trust Fund for home repair and the Home Repair Opportunity Program (the HeRO Program).
The Missouri Housing Trust Fund was established in 1994 and can provide qualifying low-income residents up to $10,000 for home improvements and weatherization, including new roofs, new heating systems and making the home handicap-accessible.
Meanwhile, the HeRO Program can provide residents who qualify up to $22,500 for home improvements. However, the HeRO Program requires everything in the home to be brought up to code, such as removing lead and asbestos.
Nichols said the SCMCAA has helped weatherize 742 homes since 2010, and that number is increasing every day. He added there is a waiting list for all three programs the SCMCAA utilizes — LIWAP, the Missouri Housing Trust Fund (Home Repair) and the HeRO Program.
With many of the seven counties of the SCMCAA — Butler, Ripley, Carter, Wayne, Reynolds, Shannon and Dent — having some of the state’s lowest per capita incomes, that adds even more urgency to the weatherization program.
“I feel that all of these programs are very beneficial to the residents of the home,” Nichols said. “With LIWAP, we can make a home more energy efficient. With the Missouri Housing Trust Fund and the HeRO Program grants, we can make major repairs to make the home safe, efficient and relieve the burden of the cost of home repairs.”