This story was produced in partnership with Planet Detroit.

On Belvidere Street on Detroit’s east side, Tammara Howard’s efforts to build a community space show what is possible with limited resources. Her project, What About Us?, provides a place for the community to gather, learn from one another and share resources. 

“I want to let people see that there is hope,” Howard told Planet Detroit. 

Spaces like Howard’s are also an important tactic for historically under-resourced communities to adapt to a warming climate. Local nonprofit Eastside Community Network is working with Howard and others on Detroit’s east side to develop a network of climate resilience hubs — defined by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network as “community-serving facilities augmented to support residents, coordinate communication, distribute resources, and reduce carbon pollution while enhancing the quality of life.”

That could mean a safe place to charge phones or store medicine during power outages or a cooling center to protect people during heat waves. Hubs can also be a point of contact to learn about resources so that residents are better prepared to ride out a crisis.

“The community needs a safe, familiar, welcoming place to come to both on a day-to-day basis and in times of distress,” said Ricky Ackerman, director of climate equity at Eastside Community Network. “Tam has a great sense of community embedded in her, and it shows in all she does.”

But for Howard, the mission is about more than just crisis response.

“What drives me to do what I do is the love I have for the families and my community,” Howard told Planet Detroit. “I always feel like love in the community is the greatest thing so that we can all work together to build and raise our families to live in a nice, healthy, and safe environment.”

‘Leads with love’ 

Howard lives in the same east side neighborhood she grew up in, where she raised her own children and now receives visits from her grandchildren. She lives in the same house that her mother, who volunteered in their community for decades, was raised in. 

Howard started What About Us? in 2014 but was already running the Belvidere Community Youth Block Club since 2000.

The block club launched with youth and families in mind, with Howard aiming to find ways for the community to work together. “I felt how important it was,” she said.

Howard, who has three children, launched the block club to give her kids something constructive to do with their friends; they cleaned up trash around the community, cut grass, and started gardening.

It was her involvement in her kids’ schools, where she was president of the local school community organization, that launched her community activism.

“I formed relationships with the youth and their parents,” she said. “I had a lot of time to do things with the kids. That’s how I originally started all this.”

Word got around, and a lot of families that did not live on Belvidere started asking to be a part of Howard’s active block club. That’s what prompted her to start What About Us? in 2014.

“It don’t matter where you live. You don’t have to live in Detroit. Just come. That’s what the concept is, for everybody to benefit,” she said.

What About Us? receives some financial support from Detroit Residents First Fund and Community Connections and is a partner with Eastside Community Network. 

“They are helping to build our resiliency hub with the support and stuff that we need in order to help make it a great success, and we thank them for that,” Howard told Planet Detroit.

But Howard has bootstrapped much of the project using her own limited resources.

“A lot of people are already running spaces serving the role of a resilience hub even if they’re not calling it that,” Ackerman told Planet Detroit. “We’re trying to identify those spots, connect with them, and see how we can best support them.”

Sabrina Hollis, who has lived on Belvidere Street for about 20 years, recently participated in a community vision board party where the residents clipped images and words out of magazines to represent what they hope to see in their community, and shared those ideas with one another. She was able to meet a lot of different people and discuss things that will be going on in the community.

“I think it’s great to have a resiliency hub right in my neighborhood, on my block,” she said. 

Along with the resiliency hub, Howard is working on a new mobile unit, which she purchased with her own money, cleared out, and plans to use to serve the community beyond Belvidere Street — especially residents who cannot leave their homes easily. 

“This is an example of how committed Tam is,” Ackerman said. “She also shows up for everyone and is so supportive of other community leaders around the east side. She truly leads with love and always looks for ways to build up everyone around her.”

A place for power

Like many neighborhoods in Detroit, residents on Belvidere Street often lose power. The trailer is there for residents to use during emergencies when the power is out. Howard has a gas generator onsite to allow residents to charge their phones and medical devices and put their medicine in the refrigerator until they know what is going to happen with the power. 

The last time the neighborhood lost power was in February, and since it was cold outside, What About Us? gave neighbors insulated bags to keep their refrigerated items on the back porches of their houses. They also gave residents solar-powered lights.

“When it’s a power outage, and it’s dark, people don’t like to leave their house. Nobody wants anyone to go in their house,” Howard said. “We gave out some solar lights so that at night, people could see.”

The solar lights worked so well, Howard plans to get solar lights for emergency kits to hand out to neighbors. Eastside Community Network is also working with the nonprofit organization Elevate to connect resiliency hubs to solar energy and battery storage. 

Photos of activities, events, and field trips over the years cover the walls inside the trailer. At least twice, or sometimes three times a month, Howard holds some kind of event on her block, either for the kids or for the community. And she’ll often invite construction workers in for lemonade or offer refrigerator space for someone who needs it.

The organization has about 10 volunteers, and most of the events take place outside, where residents feel safer due to the covid pandemic. Inside the trailer, there is a small classroom space, kitchen, storage area, and another space where students can do homework after school. Programs regularly serve about 50 families, with larger events reaching more than 200 people.

One of the biggest events is an annual health and safety fair — this year’s event will be the  15th year it’s been held. The event will be held on Wednesday, July 26, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hollis’ son was two years old when they first attended the fair, and he is now 15 going on 16. 

Howard “has consistently ensured that every year there’s a safety fair on Belvidere between East Warren and Moffat. People that live on other blocks are welcomed as well,” Hollis said.

The fire department does demonstrations about how to make sure residents are safe in their homes, local banks provide financial literacy training, and the Secretary of State brings a mobile truck so people can get their IDs renewed. Home repair experts are on hand to advise residents on how to get a new roof or make other home repairs.

The next project What About Us? is working on is designing a playground for kids of all ages and abilities called the “Live, Learn and Love” project, funded through a Community Connections grant to design a space for young people. 

The project includes a music wall with musical instruments at the bottom and the top of the fence walls for kids to make music — including pots, pans, and spoons from resale shops. Howard also plans to add picnic tables with instruments bolted down to them. The lot will soon be fenced in and will have areas for the parents to sit while the children play.

“This is really a passion for her. It comes from the heart. It’s not just something she’s doing to benefit from it,” Hollis said. “Yes, she actually really does care.”

Eastside Community Network staff see Howard’s work as a model for the resilience hubs it’s trying to develop across the east side — and a call to get more resources to community leaders.

“What Tam is able to get done with the limited resources she has had showcases the need and importance of getting more resources to neighborhood-based groups like hers,” Ackerman said.   

“They know what can have the biggest impact for residents in their area, and more resources going directly to neighborhood groups can greatly expand their impact.”

Detroit resident ‘leads with love’ while laying a foundation for neighborhood climate resiliency is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article is co-published by the Energy News Network and Planet Detroit with support from the Race and Justice Reporting Initiative at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University. 

When Michelle Jones lost electricity for three days last summer, the $200 worth of food she had just bought to feed herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter got spoiled in the fridge and then thrown into the garbage. 

After she couldn’t salvage her groceries, she was denied a $25 reimbursement credit for her troubles. It was frustrating for Jones, who was on a $300 monthly payment plan for utility service. 

The issue is top of mind for many Detroiters, who already pay a significant share of their income in utility bills, after severe storms last year left thousands of people across southeast Michigan without electricity for days.

Jones, an energy activist, rattled off these grievances to over a dozen bundled-up onlookers on a chilly afternoon last Wednesday at the Avalon Village community space in Highland Park. Environmental justice activist groups, including Soulardarity, We the People, Detroit Action, the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, and others, organized the rally. 

Invoking the oratorical gifts of a pastor, Jones asked the crowd a few simple questions.

“Are you tired yet?” she asked. 

They responded with a smattering of yeses. 

“Are you tired of watching your energy bill go up?”

“Yes,” the crowd answered, this time louder. 

“While your energy service goes down? Are you tired of power outages where you lose food?”

A third yes resounded. Jones was tired. They were all tired. 

Jones was among dozens of energy activists who gathered to support a new package of bills introduced by state Reps. Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, and Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, to increase financial relief for customers during power outages and force more accountability from utilities. 

House Bill 6043 sets a formula for utilities to issue bill credits to residents for losses incurred during power outages that increases with the time of the outage. HB 6045 would give customers a $100 credit if they experienced four service interruptions lasting an hour or more within the previous 12 months. If the customer experiences more than four outages, they’d receive a $200 credit on their bill. 

The bills come on the heels of a March order by the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state’s utility oversight body, to increase the previously required credit of $25 per day to $35 per day. 

Under “catastrophic conditions” with more than 10% of customers losing power, credits would kick in after 96 hours instead of the previous 120 hours. The new order added a new “gray sky” scenario that would trigger credits after 48 hours when between 1% and 10% of customers lose power. Under normal conditions, credits kick in after 16 hours, the same as the prior rule.

The order also requires utilities to automatically issue bill credits to customers rather than requiring customers to request them. According to Amy Bandyk, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Citizens Utility Board of Michigan, that’s important because many Michigan utility customers don’t know they are eligible for bill credits. A CUB report showed that in 2017, Consumers Energy and DTE Energy paid a fraction of the eligible credits owed to affected customers.

“Ultimately, it was on the customer to say, ‘I had this outage, it fell within the credit guidelines, and now I’m requesting the credit.’ So people weren’t doing that,” Bandyk said. “They weren’t aware it existed, and they weren’t getting the money.” 

CUB had lobbied for a $2 per hour credit that increased with the power outage duration; in its order, the Public Service Commission wrote that CUB’s proposal was “unreasonable.”

In an email statement to Planet Detroit, Commissioner Dan Scripps provided context for the decision: “In response to comments received from utility stakeholders that raised concerns about both the mechanics of allocating credits on an hourly basis and the likelihood that such an approach would lead to an increased number of complaints from customers, the Commission determined that the $35 credit for each additional day a customer remains without power was more reasonable than CUB’s initial proposal,” Scripps said.

Other bills in the package would create additional accountability measures. HB 6044 would prohibit utilities from including bill credits for outages in rate applications; HB 6047 would require the commission to conduct reviews of distribution grid plans as contested cases, allowing advocates to intervene; HB 6046 would require utilities to report the duration and frequency of outages on customers’ bills.

Aiyash said the compensation figures in HB 6043 were outlined in collaboration with community organizations. 

“We sat down with those who know where the impacts are and where the pain is. And we were able to draft that legislation together. So the number came from a sound perspective,” he said. 

If passed, the utility compensation measure would be the first of its kind in Michigan, Aiyash said. 

Rabhi told Planet Detroit that the legislative package is designed to counter the power of electric and gas utilities in Michigan that “run Lansing unchecked,” he said, with “disastrous consequences of what happens when you leave utilities essentially unregulated.”

“There’s very little accountability when the power goes out to make sure that the utilities are fixing their grid and upgrading it and ensuring that there’s not going to be future outages like this,” he added. 

The state’s energy grid is one of the least reliable in the country, with frequent and lengthy outages. And as climate change intensifies, the aging energy infrastructure is more vulnerable to the pummeling of the elements. 

“We have more outages, and there’s a reason for that,” Rabhi said. “We have what I see as the worst of the worst-case scenario. We don’t have competition, on the one hand. And on the other hand, we don’t have true government regulation because the utilities have the ability to influence elections in a very serious and dramatic way.” Campaign finance records show that DTE Energy, Consumers Energy, ITC Holdings, and SEMCO gave over $50,000 to Rabhi’s utility-friendly rivals in 2018. Rabhi would like to see a ban on utilities making campaign contributions.

Despite some bipartisan co-sponsorship and support from activists, citizens, business owners, and ratepayers, Rabhi is less than optimistic that these bills will progress this year.  

“Of course, the opposition from the utilities is still very strong. And I doubt, if I’m being realistic, that they will allow for this to come forward because they control the process in a real way. And so they’re going to do everything in their power to make sure that this doesn’t happen,” he said.

DTE Energy called the proposed legislation “unnecessary.” 

The Public Service Commission “has already conducted a thorough review, with input from all interested parties, and issued orders last month approving new service quality and technical standards including compensation and automatic credits for customers experiencing an outage,” DTE spokesperson Jill M. Wilmot said in an email.

Wilmot added that DTE is also addressing the cause of outages by accelerating investments in grid hardening and has committed $90 million to improve tree trimming efforts without raising rates. And under a five-year plan, the company is working to make the grid more resilient against severe weather, in hopes of reducing the cost of outages to utility customers.

In January, DTE asked the commission for a rate increase to help pay for improvements to its service, infrastructure, and clean energy initiatives. If approved, a residential utility customer’s monthly bill would increase by $10. 

However, Wilmot said the true financial impact of the proposed rate increase won’t be determined until the commission makes a decision later this year. Any new rate would not go into effect until this November. 

“DTE’s average monthly residential electric bill is below the industry average, and the company is committed to continuing to keep bills affordable for customers,” she said. 

But Aiyash called on utilities to up their game to fix the region’s electric grid. 

“The idea here is we want our utility companies to hire more utility workers to fix the issues as they happen,” he told the crowd. “We want them to actually invest in retrofitting and upgrading and making sure that our grid is climate resilient, so [the utility company] can’t blame a little bit of wind and a little bit of rain, which shouldn’t be taking out people’s power in the first place.” 

“I live in Detroit. I’m from the east side,” said Kamau Clark, an organizer with We the People. In the wake of last year’s outages, the organization helped people who lost power get groceries and shelter. “All my life, we had power outages; they would run up to three days, four days, five days.”

Bridget Vial, an organizer with the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, wants to see solar panels atop her neighbors’ roofs as well as schools. She hopes that no person would come home to an energy bill they can’t afford. 

“Our bills go up every year, and the electric grid is crumbling,” she said. “We’ve had a chance to truly push back on this kind of corruption with people power to demand that our elected officials are putting their constituents over DTE profit.”

Detroit energy activists push to hold utilities accountable during power outages is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This article is co-published by the Energy News Network and Planet Detroit with support from the Race and Justice Reporting Initiative at the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University. 

It’s possible to make renewable energy accessible and affordable to low-income communities, according to a new report produced by Detroit-area nonprofit Soulardarity and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The report envisions the city of Highland Park, Michigan, offsetting all of its electricity use with renewable and clean energy, with residents exercising more control over their energy usage and sources than they do now. 

With utility rates increasing, bills growing more unaffordable, and power outages occurring more frequently due to weakened grid systems and more intense storms, the report is helping to envision alternative solutions. But the solutions it offers would require drastic change to current policy.

The report, Let Communities Choose, illustrates how Highland Park — a city of about 9,000 people completely surrounded by Detroit — could be fully powered with community solar, rooftop solar, energy efficiency, distributed solar, and community water and energy resource centers in a way that would not only be affordable to the city’s low-income residents, but would relieve them of disproportionate energy costs. The scenario was modeled using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) modeling tool.

Soulardarity Executive Director Shimekia Nichols told Planet Detroit that energy sovereignty is the answer to solving energy poverty in cities like Highland Park, where the median household income is $18,474 and residents spend 18% to 33% of their income on utilities.

Soulardarity defines energy sovereignty as “the ability of communities and individuals to choose the forms, scales, and sources of the energy they use.” 

“Energy democracy is just a way of saying that ratepayers have a voice too,” Nichols said. “Subject matter experts are not just utility CEOs and major solar installation companies. It includes ratepayers, local installers, churches, schools, students. It includes us all. And so we want to make sure that those conversations include community input at all levels of decision making.”

The idea that renewable energy cannot be affordable is one of the misconceptions Soulardarity and the Union of Concerned Scientists wanted to clarify in the report. 

“DTE Energy continues to misinform the community of solar being inaccessible and unaffordable for low-income and moderate-income families,” Nichols said.

Community and rooftop solar “pay for themselves over time,” said James Gignac, a senior Midwest energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author of the report. “The real challenge is getting the upfront capital or investment funding to be able to install the equipment to make the energy efficiency upgrades in people’s homes and businesses.”

That upfront capital could come from existing programs like Michigan Saves or on-bill financing, in which a city could help fund solar and other projects and then customers could pay that back over time. 

At the state level, efforts to enable community solar and eliminate rooftop solar caps are among some of the initiatives Michigan lawmakers are supporting that could help advance the vision.

Soulardarity and other advocates hope to use the report to influence state lawmakers.

“When you say something, you need that data to back it up for people to really get an understanding that this is something that’s possible,” said Gracie Wooten, an “energy and water warrior” and longtime resident and advocate in Highland Park. “So even though we have [solar projects] going on right now, it could be helped if there were changes in policies by the state, and also by Highland Park, that could actually make something that we already understand can be a reality, actually happen.”

The report also details how more favorable energy policies could reduce the return on investment time for solar installations, such as true net metering and residential energy credits. Proposed policy changes would lift current restrictions on solar development under Michigan law, increase compensation for solar developers and subscribers, and require stronger energy efficiency policies.

Action at the local level is needed too. Wooten and other Highland Park residents are advocating for a city sustainability commission to help advance a clean energy ordinance in Highland Park.

“One of the steps that the city government could take as part of a clean energy ordinance could be to establish a 100% goal, and then have benchmarks along the way towards meeting that,” Gignac said.

The report proposes local measures that the city could undertake, such as enacting a comprehensive solar ordinance, setting local clean energy benchmarks, building city-owned community solar and more.

Soulardarity has been working to make Highland Park more self-sufficient since DTE repossessed its streetlights in 2011, leaving most of the city’s residential streets in the dark. The nonprofit, along with other clean energy groups in Highland Park such as Avalon Village, Parker Village, and Ryter Cooperative Industries, have been promoting clean energy and energy democracy for more than a decade. Nichols is looking forward to the future of clean energy in her city. 

“We’ll also see connections to be able to grow jobs and support a new wave of labor in Highland Park. And so that was the backbone of why we did this report,” she said. “At the end of the day, we need to see unification and solidarity.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Gracie Wooten’s last name.

Michigan group lays out vision for 100% clean energy in Highland Park is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Appalachia’s people of color have borne greater social and economic burdens, on average, than their White counterparts, but their stories are often left out of policy discussions about energy and other issues in the region. 

A new coalition is now seeking to amplify those unheard voices.

The Black Appalachian Coalition is an initiative of Black Women Rising. Bishop Marcia Dinkins, the group’s founder and executive director, recently talked with the Energy News Network about its work to shift from a single story about Appalachia.

Q: Why do we need conversations with Appalachia’s people of color about the effects of fossil fuels, pollution and other problems?

A: “We should be having these conversations because Black people are impacted,” Dinkins said. “And when we look at the inequities with regards to exploitation, extraction and exclusion — historically and presently — it continues to divest from these voices.”

As she sees it, people often have one view of America and a separate view of rural America that is primarily White. By numbers, Black people are a small minority in many parts of Appalachia. “But it does not mean there should be an absence of these rural voices.”

Q: What’s the result of a system that doesn’t seek out and listen to stories from people of color?

A: “It keeps them outside of policymaking. It keeps them outside of being a part of legislation that’s moving to improve the quality of life for others, but not for them,” Dinkins said. “They’re outside the conversation. They’re not at the table.”

Q: Why are energy issues especially relevant for communities in Appalachia?

A: “Fossil fuels have been a contributor or a conduit for allowing systemic racism,” Dinkins said. And energy issues are intricately intertwined with racial disparities. “Black voices need to be in this conversation because they’re the ones who speak best to systemic racism and how fossil fuels have impacted their communities.”

Appalachian states have long been centers for coal mining and various coal-intensive industries. More recently, the combination of fracking and horizontal drilling has accelerated natural gas extraction, along with the range of disruptions it often brings. Black communities are especially affected by those activities and by industries that burn fossil fuels in factories, steel mills and so forth, Dinkins said.

Q: BLAC hosted listening sessions this fall, where individuals from communities in Appalachian Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky shared insights. What were you looking to find out?

A: “Our goal for these listening sessions is to hear the voices of people about their lived experiences and to walk alongside them to identify solutions for their community,” Dinkins said. In other words: What are people of color experiencing as a result of pollution, a lack of infrastructure, limited opportunities, disparities in resources and other issues in their areas?

People’s stories have also highlighted disparities that reflect systemic racism. Parks in White areas may get funding and modern restrooms, for example, but not one in a Black neighborhood. Gaps in educational achievement are linked to school funding based on property taxes, and Black people have had less economic wealth, on average, than White people. “We know that all of these things connect,” Dinkins said.

Q: How can those experiences lead to policy solutions?

A: BLAC is asking people what they want, rather than telling them what they need, Dinkins said. “What is the change that they believe should happen or occur in their communities to improve their quality of life?” Once people have answered those questions, then policy solutions can be proposed. And the solutions will often differ based on a community’s size, available resources and other factors.

For example, if residents are impacted by pollution from an industrial plant that uses fossil fuels, they don’t want the pollution to continue. But they may not necessarily want the plant to shut down and hurt the local economy. And they may resent comments that they should move away if they don’t like the pollution. Instead, people near the plant may want stricter enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, so plant owners are held accountable for the harm they cause. And they may want the plant’s owners to rectify pollution problems that are hurting people’s quality of life.

“People aren’t just looking for the big things,” Dinkins added. “It is the little things as well.” Weatherization can cut heavy energy burdens from electricity and gas bills. Better public transportation can eliminate multi-hour grocery store trips. Still others want workforce development and opportunities for job training, as well as ways to increase entrepreneurship and investment in depressed communities.

Q: Why is it important to look beyond general problems in Appalachia to specific impacts on people of color?

A: Economic depression and other problems are widespread in Appalachia, but people of color often feel those impacts more severely.

“Black people have had big houses on their backs that they’ve had to carry. At some point in time, you’re bent over for so long that you’re stuck in a position that you can’t look up,” Dinkins said. “And if you can, it’s not too far.”

Also, when the single story policymakers hear is about the problems of White people, solutions will focus mainly on them. Even if solutions could technically help everyone, lack of a car or other practical considerations may still exclude many people of color, Dinkins said.

Q: Why is it especially important now for the public and policymakers to hear from Black people in Appalachia?

A: “This is an important moment in history,” Dinkins said. Congress just passed a massive infrastructure bill. Other bills to address climate change remain pending. Yet even programs that sound good on paper won’t address the needs of Appalachia’s people of color unless they get a chance to tell their stories and to be at the table for fleshing out those programs, Dinkins said.

Q: Why have those voices been left out of policy discussions for so long?

A: Many people’s view of Appalachia stems from a “nostalgic narrative that romanticizes whiteness inside of rural America,” Dinkins said. Black and Native American people have long lived in Appalachia. Yet many missionaries and others didn’t see them as deserving, she said. “So the failure to talk about these things, it starts politically: Which communities are deserving [of help and public resources], and which communities are undeserving?”

Q: How is that narrative still promoted today?

A: “Black erasure” efforts are still at work to suppress people’s views and voices, and those efforts reinforce systems “that were built on racist policymaking in the first place,” Dinkins said. That lets privileged groups hold onto their power.

“By eliminating truth and not allowing certain things to be taught in school, it only gives you one side of the story.” That reinforces “Black invisibility and the continuation of policymaking that only advances the agency of the policymaker and keeps all these things like fossil fuels in place.”

Q: Why is BLAC important as a safe place for people of color to share their stories?

A: “Racism is a powerful dynamic,” Dinkins said. People of color don’t always feel safe speaking out in other public forums. As a result, many people feel a sense of despair and inertia, she said. BLAC provides a safe space for people to share stories.

“It is also the fact of Black people knowing that their stories are worth being told and worth being heard,” Dinkins said. “Then we can move the needle” on changing policies and making progress against racism.

“But nobody wants to fight alone.”

Black Appalachian Coalition aims to shift narrative on energy, other issues is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Black, Brown and Indigenous communities have been disproportionately at risk of hospitalization and death. 

Recent research suggests high utility bills and utility shutoffs played a role in that impact — while companies were receiving federal funds and boosting executive compensation.

Pandemic-related job loss has increased household crowding and left many individuals and families unable to keep up with their utility bills. Lack of air conditioning can exacerbate breathing problems from chronic conditions such as asthma, and the absence of hot, clean running water makes it difficult to maintain handwashing and sanitation to reduce the risk of infection.  

By contrast, utility shutoff moratoriums made it easier for households to remain in their own homes and adhere to stay-at-home orders during the beginning of the pandemic, thereby reducing rates of infection, hospitalization, and death. As restrictions have eased, families whose utility services are not disrupted are less likely to double up with relatives and friends or go to homeless shelters, also reducing the likelihood of COVID-19 community spread.

Had a nationwide ban on disconnections been in effect from March to November 2020, COVID-19 infections would have been reduced by 8.7% and COVID-related deaths reduced by 14.7%, according to a January 2021 working paper published by the National Bureau for Economic Research.

A September report from the Center for Biological Diversity and Bailout Watch highlights utility companies that refused to pause shutoffs for delinquent customers while collecting millions of dollars in federal support.

The report, titled Powerless in the Pandemic, found six utility companies accounted for 94% of all documented shutoffs. Four of these companies: NextEra Energy (parent of Florida Power & Light, among others), Duke Energy, Southern Company, and Dominion Energy are largely concentrated in the South. 

“These utilities are functioning essentially in the Black Belt states,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and a co-author of the report. “So, we know that … these are companies that very much are in the Southeast where the populations are disproportionately Black, and that suffer the highest energy burdens in the country. I think that’s another important data point to insert here in terms of the racial injustice and locations of the utility shutoffs.”

The other two utilities included in the report’s “Hall of Shame” — DTE Energy and Exelon — serve areas that include Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia. 

And while COVID-19 rates are presently on the decline, utility shutoffs remain a continuing threat. 

Shutoffs and utility windfalls

Sixteen utilities received a combined $1.25 billion in financial support from the federal government through the CARES Act, passed by Congress and signed into law in March 2020. At the same time, nearly 1 million families nationwide had their electric service suspended or canceled between July 2020 and June 2021 — during the height of the pandemic — according to the report. 

The report also stated that just 8.5% of the $1.25 billion received in bailout funds could have prevented every reported utility shutoff. NextEra Energy alone recorded more than 470,000 shutoffs between July 2020 and June 2021. The company received $41 million in CARES Act benefits — which alone could have covered much of the nearly $50 million it would have cost to avoid those disconnections.

The full impact is difficult to measure. No industry-wide standard or federal regulation exists to compel private utilities to disclose shutoff data. As a result, public reporting of shutoff data is split — with nearly half of states providing no public data on shutoffs, and four states providing only partial shutoff data through special reports.

Individual emergency orders by 32 states and the District of Columbia to prevent utility shutoffs mitigated the lack of a nationwide mandate to some extent. However, as of June 2021, just 10 states either still had moratoriums in place or had recorded no utility shutoffs. By the end of September 2021, only New York state still had a utility shutoff moratorium in place, according to the report.

While many customers suffered greatly due to utility shutoffs, top management and shareholders fared extremely well. In fact, the amount spent on executive pay and shareholder dividends could have more than covered the full cancellation of late utility bills, oftentimes several times over. 

For example, NextEra Energy paid out more than $2.7 billion in CEO compensation and shareholder dividends — more than 55 times the amount required to prevent all of its utility shutoffs — between April 2020 and June 2021. 

At the same time, utilities actively lobbied against legislative protections for ratepayers, according to Chris Kuveke, research consultant with BailoutWatch, who co-authored the report.

“That was pretty blatant. We saw the vast majority of these companies increase executive compensation. We limited the report scope to CEO compensation, but across the executive suite, these companies raised salaries. They raised stock awards [and] performance-based bonuses. Then on top of that, they raised dividends, in some cases pretty drastically, [to] compensate shareholders. 

“Based on national studies of average utility rates, executive compensation and tax refunds, it was hundreds of times over the amount of money that they spent on shareholders and executives compared to what it would’ve cost to keep people’s lights on,” Kuveke said.

Utility shutoffs and housing insecurity

Utility shutoffs often generate adverse health effects, and can be a contributing factor to homelessness. No electricity means no air conditioning during the heat of summer, and spoiled food at all times of the year — along with leaving homes in the dark. 

Hundreds of thousands of families suffering COVID-related job loss and other hardships faced housing insecurity due to utility shutoffs. In many cases, the result was unlivable conditions that essentially forced residents to leave their homes. In several states, renters are prohibited from remaining in units without working utilities. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a nationwide eviction moratorium in September 2020 to prevent evictions. After several extensions, the moratorium expired on July 31, 2021.

On Aug. 3, 2021, the CDC enacted a second moratorium effective only in areas with high COVID-19 transmission rates. The moratorium immediately faced multiple legal challenges, and finally landed before the Supreme Court, which blocked its enforcement on Aug. 31. The case has since been referred to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

However, moratoriums on rent evictions alone do not solve the dilemma of utility shutoffs. To address this shortfall, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the HEROES Act in May 2020, which included a nationwide moratorium on utility and water shutoffs. However, the Senate, still under the leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell at the time, failed to advance the measure. 

Private companies and the public good

The report concluded that fundamental government intervention represents the only realistic path toward providing real relief to households burdened by utility bills that they cannot pay. Findings reported in the National Bureau for Economic Research report exposed a fundamental disconnect between the function of utilities and their financial structure. 

Specifically, federal, state and municipal governments entrust utilities to deliver essential services such as electricity, heat and clean water while allowing them to operate as for-profit entities.

“For a very long time we have just assumed that giving private companies the ability to deliver a human right made economic sense because it’s economies of scale and it’s very expensive to create electricity. But over time, especially over the last few decades we have seen the choices that utilities have made — and that state regulators have allowed — are against public interest,” Su said.

As private companies, utilities work to increase profits — and reward stockholders with dividends. Too often, the result is that shareholders benefit at the expense of low-income consumers, according to Su.

“Utilities are private companies and we can’t expect private companies to be charitable. And I understand that. So that’s why I think our main target is government regulation. Because at the end of the day, a utility as a private company can take in so much revenue and yet they are not required at all to deal with this issue of not servicing all [customers regardless of income]. So, I think we need far greater utility accountability,” Su said.

Power shutoffs deepened pandemic toll while utilities collected millions in relief is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.