Success Stories

Client Spotlight:
South Central Community Action Program Helps
Grandmother Reduce Her $745 a Month
Electric Bill

By Doug Wilson, Director of Communications and Development

Shirley Beaumont never used to worry much about
paying her utility bills. That was before her husband, Russell, of almost 50 years died six years ago. Back when the retired couple was receiving both of their social security checks, as well as his pension from Indiana Bell, they could live reasonably comfortably in the home they’d bought in November 1960.

But these days, with just Shirley’s fixed income from social security paying the bills, there’s less of a cushion for unexpected expenses. Last winter, Shirley faced rising expenses that would be a problem even for a wealthier person when the cost of heating her home just west of Bloomington skyrocketed. In an all-electric house, she received an electric bill of $345 one month and $430 the next. She was still reeling from those bills when the next month’s bill arrived - $745. “Oh my God,” she recalled. “I cried.”

Beaumont quickly did what she could to reduce her heating bills. A grandmother with three daughters and one son living in the area, she got their help in putting plastic over her windows and closing off a room at one end of the house. Her family also helped with her heating expenses. One daughter, Rhea Kutche, lives at Shirley’s house some of the time as Rhea recovers from bone cancer.

Her home was one of the first of about 150 that SCCAP weatherized using an $899,232 grant it received from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA). That grant funding came from ARRA.