Free appliances, no power to run them
Pensioner given assisstance by Hydro One days before it cut off service to her home
Peggy Mills doesn’t own a clothes dryer and has given up cable TV and telephone service in her ongoing struggle to repay a $2,500 hydro debt and keep a lid on her ever-rising monthly electricity bills.
She has disconnected her electric stove and is scouring rummage sales for a gas appliance.
And in June, the 74-year-old pensioner applied to Hydro One’s Home Assistance Program to replace her aging refrigerator and freezer with more energy-efficient models to cut costs further.
But days after Mills received word her free new appliances were ready for delivery, Hydro One cut off power to her tiny bungalow in McArthurs Mills, about 25 kilometres east of Bancroft.
“Maybe they won’t let me keep them now. Wouldn’t that be a bummer,” said Mills, whose electricity was disconnected July 18 after she gave up paying her bill in frustration over barely making a dent in the debt.
“One arm of the company gives and the other takes away.”
Not only has Mills lost power, but without electricity to run the pump on her well, she has no water either. So she drives to Bancroft several times a week to fill up five-gallon jugs from public taps. A neighbour has been letting her take baths.
“By the end of the day I’m pretty exhausted,” said Mills, who is waiting for a knee replacement operation and has other health problems.
An artist who lives on less than $17,000 a year in old age pension and HST credits, Mills is among hundreds of low-income residents in North Hastings County who are in arrears and at risk of disconnection, said Jane Kali, a community worker at North Hastings Community Trust.
“We get five to 10 calls a day from people in financial crisis because of their hydro bills,” Kali said. “Hydro can’t disconnect them in the winter, so they do it in the summer. For most people, it’s a question of paying for hydro or paying for food.”
Kali, who worked for more than a decade serving the homeless in downtown Toronto before moving to the area at the edge of Algonquin Park about five years ago, says rural poverty doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s radar.
“The isolation is huge. People are living in shacks. Hydro is the thing that is pushing people over the edge,” she said. “And there are not a lot of places people can turn to for help.”
Local Councillor Bill Kilpatrick, who sits on the board of the commu- nity trust, says average household incomes of $42,000 make it tough to pay hydro bills that can hit $1,000 a month.
“People here are making very hard choices between eating and paying the hydro,” he said. “Poverty is relatively hidden here. It’s down some back road where you don’t see it, whereas it’s far more visible in the big cities.”
When the Star reached out to Hy- dro One about Mills’ predicament Tuesday, a spokeswoman said disconnection is “always a last resort,” but that the utility is willing to take a second look.
“We’re very concerned about this customer,” said Nancy Clark.
“It appears that her situation is especially difficult,” she said. “So we are going to take this opportunity to look at this account again, reach out to social services in the area ... and see if there is an arrangement that we can find.”
Aspokeswoman for Ontario’s energy ministry said the province offers energy tax credits, payment programs and monthly subsidies to help low-income residents pay arrears and make bills more affordable.
“Ontario’s government is focused on ensuring that vulnerable customers have the resources to help avoid disconnection,” Katrina Xavier said.
Kali has already helped Mills get a grant of $500 from the provincial Low-Income Energy Assistance Program to help pay her arrears.
In the spring, Mills started receiving a $30 monthly energy credit on her bill through the Ontario Electricity Support Program, introduced in January.
But the mother of five and grandmother of eight who visits the local food bank twice a month and has furnished her home with castoffs from the local dump, has been unable to get ahead of her hydro debt.
“My consumption charges are only about $49 a month. But delivery charges are almost twice that amount. And they keep rising,” Mills said.
Combined with her monthly debt repayment charge of $90 — which she says never seems to make a dent in the total amount she owes — Mills was forking out as much as $200 a month to keep her lights on and water running.
About three months ago, when Hydro One hiked her monthly debt repayment charge to $450 and threatened her with disconnection, Mills says she gave up paying altogether.
“It was going to cost me more than my mortgage,” she said. Kali says Mills’ reaction is common. “Hydro puts people on payment plans they can’t afford,” she said. “It’s a real problem.”
Kali, is teaming up with the Toronto-based group Put Food in the Budget, to put rural poverty on the provincial agenda.
The group will be touring North Hastings County in September as part of what Kali hopes will result in dozens of rural communities taking up the charge.
“I’d love to see busloads of us converge on Queen’s Park to tell Premier Wynne what it’s like in rural Ontario,” she said.
“To put food in the budget in rural Ontario, you have to put hydro in the budget.”
“Hydro puts people on payment plans they can’t afford. It’s a real problem.” JANE KALI COMMUNITY WORKER