“I think it would just be totally devastating. These families would be completely on their own. Our senior citizens that depend on these programs to help with just some of the basic repairs would be gone.”

– Neighborhood Housing Services Oklahoma Executive Director Roland Chupik on President Trump’s proposed federal budget, which would eliminate funding for a number of programs including the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps low-income families pay their energy bills, or repair or replace broken furnaces or air conditioners (Source). In SFY 2016, 87,770 Oklahoma households received winter heating assistance and 78,335 households received summer cooling assistance through LIHEAP (Source). 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carly Putnam joined OK Policy in 2013. As Policy Director, she supervises policy research and strategy. She previously worked as an OK Policy intern, and she was OK Policy's health care policy analyst through July 2020. She graduated from the University of Tulsa in 2013. As a student, she was a participant in the National Education for Women (N.E.W.) Leadership Institute and interned with Planned Parenthood. Carly is a graduate of the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits Nonprofit Management Certification; the Oklahoma Developmental Disabilities Council’s Partners in Policymaking; The Mine, a social entrepreneurship fellowship in Tulsa; and Leadership Tulsa Class 62. She currently serves on the boards of Restore Hope Ministries and The Arc of Oklahoma. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and doing battle with her hundred year-old house.

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