Here's some things to know if you are applying for help with the enormous heating bills that we all aquire in Maine:
*If you go to apply for emergency assistance at DHHS (you can do this 1x a year for up to $250, I think? ONLY if you have children in the home and you MUST bring a disconnect notice. Or it can be used for rent with an eviction notice), they will ONLY grant this if your disconnect notice is the result of a broken payment plan. If you made a payment plan last year and it was satisifed in say, December and you are just late and accruing a huge amount owed now, they wont grant it. Call Unitil or CMP or whomever, make the payment plan and when the time comes that you can not make that payment and get a disconnect notice, THAT is when you bring it in and apply.
* PROP will not offer assistance if you already have a payment plan.
* General assistance is also an option, but they have pretty strict guidelines. They will refer you to PROP if they reject you. (see above).
so, apply for aid first. Odds are, PROP or DHHS is going to call whomever your bill is from and negotiate a payment plan while they are issuing you aid. Just so you know. This works in your favor way better then doing it before you go on.
oh, and all of these places will want scads of documentation.
Here's how I would do it if it were me (and it very well could be):
1)go to GA (General Assistance). Be prepared to spend a good chunk of your day there, it takes a while. I will also say, bring a thick skin. Or a case manager if you have one or someone for support. They can be kinda brutal down there, depending on who you get. Cases are assigned to CMs by alphabet. I think the nicest case worker down there is John W. You are lucky if you get him. He's cool: large guy, bald head. Anyway, you are only allowed to schedule an appointment if a case manager does it for you (and it's like a covetted piece of info for CMs to know how to do this, not all the phone numbers and extensions work and the ones that do certainly are not public knowledge). They close from 12-1, and keep funky hours in general at times (there is a "surprise! we are closed!" chunk of time at the end of the day on Fridays, for instance. Eventually they will 'fess up that they will see certain cases , like homeless/housing issues, etc). see below for address and alledged hours and contact info.
2) allow GA to refer you to PROP. Or just go anyway. The phone number to schedule for HEAP is almost impossable to get through. Just show up at the office on the corner of Cumberland and Mellen and ask if anyone is available, If not, tell them you would like to schedule and you have a disconnect notice. They might also want to see a rejection letter from Geneal assistance.
got your payment plan set up now? Hope so. Even if you wern't able to get help, you should set this up. They will want a payment from you if it is not already coming from another place.
3)when your payment plan is broken and you receive a disconnect notice, take that to DHHS and apply for emergency assistance. If, by some miracle you don't need the full $250 or whatever, you have up to 30 days to apply the rest of the assistance towards another bill with a disconnect or eviction notice.
Yes, your credit will be f*****. I'm guessing that a lot of people are struggling and have F***** credit at this time. Welcome to the social service system. Your credit will suffer, but hopefully you still have hot water and your kids will never know anything was up.
& Welcome to Maine, where heating issues will plague you all year 'round!
That GA info I mentioned:
196 Lancaster Street
Portland, Maine 04101
Phone 207-775-7911
Fax 207-775-7917
Hours
Monday - Wednesday, Friday
8:00 am - 11:30 am &
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Thursday
8:00 am - 11:30 am
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