LOW INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (LIHEAP)

Purpose:
To assist households with low incomes, particularly those with the lowest incomes that pay a high proportion of household income for home energy, primarily in meeting their immediate home energy needs.

Legislative Authority:
Title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (Public Law 97-35), as amended.

Appropriations:

In FY 2024, $4.1 billion
In FY 2023, $6.1 billion
In FY 2022, $3.9 billion

Eligible Applicants:
States, federally recognized tribes and tribal organizations (including Alaska native villages), and territories may apply for direct LIHEAP awards. The states, tribes, and territories then provide assistance to households in need. The federal agency does not make awards directly to households. To find the contact information for state, tribe, and territory grant recipients, please see the state and territory list and the tribal list. For help paying a heating or cooling bill, find your local intake providers using the local office search tool .

Target Population:
LIHEAP benefits target households with low incomes, particularly those that have a high home energy burden (percentage of income that goes to heating and cooling bills) and/or have members who are elderly, disabled, and/or a young child.

Uses:
Grant recipients must target benefits to households with low incomes. They may set their own LIHEAP income-eligibility limits; however, they must cap those limits at (1) no more than the greater of 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG) or 60 percent of the State Median Income, and (2) no less than 110 percent of FPG. They must also give higher benefits to households with the greatest home energy need in relation to household income and number of household members.

Grant recipients must provide crisis energy assistance through at least March 15. They have the option to provide home cooling, weatherization, and/or low-cost home energy equipment repairs or replacements.

Block Grant: Congress authorizes Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) each year to allocate funding based on a formula that takes into consideration low-income home energy expenditures among other factors. Home energy is defined as a source of space-heating or space-cooling in residential dwellings. Grant recipients can use funds for heating and/or cooling costs, as well as up to 15 percent of their funding (or 25 percent with a waiver) for weatherization assistance.

Leveraging Incentive Program: The law allows the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to award supplemental LIHEAP funding to current grant recipients that used non-federal resources with their programs in the prior year. No leveraging funding is planned for FY 2023.

Residential Energy Assistance Challenge Program (REACH): The law allows HHS to award supplemental LIHEAP funding for current grant recipients to receive competitive grants to implement innovative plans to help LIHEAP eligible households reduce their home energy vulnerability. No REACH funding is planned for FY 2023.

Emergency Contingency Funds: If appropriated by Congress, the President may release these funds to assist with the home energy needs arising from an emergency, such as a natural disaster. The funds may be allocated to one or more grant recipients, or to all grant recipients, based on criteria appropriate to the emergency. Such criteria usually relate to extreme weather conditions or energy price increases. The distribution of funds is based on the degree to which the grant recipients were impacted by the emergency situation.

Type of Grant:
Block Grant

Program Requirements:
Each year, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and about 150 tribes submit an application for funds from this office by September 1. Their applications identify how funds will be distributed to households with low incomes.

States use their funds to help households with low incomes meet their home energy needs, whether through paying bills in arrears or in danger of disconnection or assisting families in making their homes more energy efficient.

FY23 Program Highlights:

• $6.2B Total funding released to support immediate home energy needs and ensure continuity of services
• 5.9M Households served  
• 261K Total occurrences of restored home energy

LIHEAP helps reduce the risk of health and safety problems that arise from unsafe heating and cooling situations and practices.

Of the households served in FY23:  

• 2.1M Households included an individual with a disability
• 996K Households included a young child  
• 2.4M Households included an older adult  

Households Assisted by Service Type  

• 5M Households that received heating assistance  
• 1.4M Households that received crisis assistance*
• 927K Households that received cooling assistance
• 61K Households that received weatherization assistance

* Grant recipients do not report an unduplicated crisis count, but we estimate the number is 1.4 million.

Program Contacts:
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
Division of Energy Assistance
Office of Community Services
Phone: (202) 401-9351
LIHEAP Staff Contacts
www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/liheap