Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
Local legend and community organizer Henry Shelton passed away Wednesday night at his home in Edgewood. He was 86 years old.
A wake in honor of his passing will be held Sunday from 4 to 8 at Keefe Funeral home in Lincoln. Funeral mass will be at St Judes in Lincoln Monday at 10am.
All are welcome.
The health consequences of losing your gas or electric power are actually pretty obvious and pretty logical once you think for a minute about the many things Rhode Islanders use their electric power and gas to do. Electricity runs our light after dark and, with gas powers our heat and heats our hot water, so if you lose power you lose light and heat and hot water. Electricity powers air conditioners and refrigerators, so if you lose power you lose cooling in the summer and the ability to keep anything that needs to cooled – milk and butter and meet and fresh vegetables, but also insulin and many liquid antibiotics. In most of rural RI, in Exeter and Green and Wakefield and Foster and Scituate and Gloucester and West Greenwich and lots of other places, electricity runs the pumps that drive all our water, so when you lose electricity you lose running water all together. And electricity drives many electric devices that help maintain the health and lives of the chronically ill – ventilators and oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, CPAP and BIPAP machines, home dialysis units and intravenous fluid pumps, hospital beds and all sorts of lights, meters and monitors.
There are over 10,000 Rhode Islanders enrolled in the Rhode Island Special Needs Registry and they are all at risk from losing power. If you lose your power and you are on a ventilator, you’ll die in minutes or hours. If you lose your power and use an Oxygen concentrator or CPAP or BIPAP, you’ll get sicker and could die or may need hospitalization in days or weeks. If you lose your power and you have asthma, you won’t be able to use your nebulizer and you could die or need hospitalization. If you lose your light you lose the ability to see and follow directions so you can’t take prescribed medicine after dark, and if you lose your power and you are depressed or have a thought disorder, the darkness can become threatening and worsen the trouble you have with thinking and anxiety. If you are elderly and are unstable on your feet, losing your light means you can’t even walk in your house at night. If you have or are prone to any kind of infection, losing hot water means you can’t bath regularly and are at increased risk from skin, urinary and other sorts of infections, which can be life threatening in people with diabetes or with any disease that lowers your resistance to infection. If you live in a rural area and depend on well water, an electric cut-off means you can’t flush your toilet or wash your hands. Try staying free from infection, or controlling any chronic disease under those conditions.
There is very strong medical evidence that many elderly and infirm will die in heat waves, so that lack of air conditioning in the summer is toxic to people who are elderly or who have serious lung or heart problems, and the lack of electricity puts people on a ventilator at immediate jeopardy and the lack of electricity puts those using oxygen and those Rhode Islanders using CPAP and BIPAP at significant risk.
Interestingly, we don’t know as much about health risks of extended exposures to cold temperatures, expect to know that the elderly and infirm are at significant additional risk from extremes of temperature. I thought about that for a long time, because it doesn’t make intuitive sense – we all know that being out in the cold lowers your resistance and you can get a cold and then catch your death of pneumonia, right? And we know the one year mortality for the street sleeping homeless is about 30 percent, higher than end stage heart failure and many types of aggressive cancer – that about a third of people who sleep on the street die every year, and the street sleeping homeless experience cold temperatures though they are beset by many other kinds of health risks as well. So what gives about the lack of medical evidence and public health data about cold? Then I realized that no civilized country lets people sit in cold houses any more. So when there isn’t widespread cold exposure, we can’t study it. Maybe there is no evidence about cold because when people are cold they can put on lots of layers of clothing and that protects them. Or maybe, just maybe, the number of people exposed is small enough, thank god, that we haven’t been able to study the problem with scientific precision.
And that also means that the moratorium on utility cutoffs in the winter – that the law says people’s utilities can’t be cut off from November 15 to April 15 if they have a doctor’s letter, actually makes no sense. Elderly Rhode Islanders and Rhode Islanders with medical problems are at increased risk in the summer. So to me that means we need a moratorium on all utility cutoffs for people who are elderly or have medical problems, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
One more thing. Every time someone with a medical problem gets their power turned off, they are way more likely to end up in the hospital. The hospitalization is going to cost 10 to 50 thousand dollars or more. You know who pays for that hospitalization? Most of those folks have Medicare or Medicaid. So National Grid doesn’t pay for that hospitalization. You and I pay for it. It comes out of tax dollars. National Grid, a regulated monopoly in Rhode Island protects their bottom line, but you and I pay. And the money we spend? That’s money that we could and should be spending on education, safe and healthy housing, the environment and recreational opportunities for kids and young adults in our communities . So who really wins and who really loses, when National Grid cuts people off and the State of Rhode Island’s Division of Public Utilities lets them do that?
Like I said, the medical and health consequences of utility cut-offs are pretty obvious. If people who are ill don’t have electric power, hot water, light, heat and air-conditioning, they are going to get sicker. Some may die. And cutting off utilities to people who are ill is illegal in Rhode Island. But National Grid does that anyway, and the Division of Public Utilities lets them. Outraged, like I am? Then do one or more of these 5 things:
This is still a democracy. Let’s all speak up together and make National Grid respect the law.
A heartbreaking video, The Lifeline Campaign, about National Grid’s seeming disregard for the law, has just been released on Vimeo. National Grid is being sued by the RI Center for Justice because they routinely shut off the electricity of seriously ill and disabled customers with past due bills, despite the presence of a doctor’s note that says the patient’s life will be imperiled if they lose service. This is against Rhode Island law.
Worse, the RI Public Utilities Commission, charged with protecting consumers, routinely rubber stamps National Grid’s requests to terminate service and does not review each case on the merits.
There is one particularly chilling sequence in which Ramon, who has a machine that allows him to breathe, tells us about the reaction of the National Grid employee when he was confronted with the fact that Ramon might die without electricity.
“It’s my job, and National Grid ordered me to shut it off,” said the National Grid employee, “so, it’s my job to do it. I hate to do it. See, I wouldn’t like to do it because I know your life depends on it, but it’s my job and I have to do it.”
You don’t have to read Hannah Arendt to understand what’s happening here.
You can watch The Lifeline Project in its entirety, below:
I’ve covered this story here:
The Lifeline Campaign is a documentary film produced by Brown University undergraduates Arohi Kapoor, Drew Williams, Isabelle DeBre, and Victoria Kidd, with the support and involvement of the George Wiley Center. The George Wiley Center is a grassroots community organization that fights for utility justice and other forms of social and economic justice through community organizing to win concrete changes in public policy. Learn more at: georgewileycenter.org.
The Rhode Island Center for Justice is a non-profit public interest law office that collaborates with the George Wiley Center to operate the Lifeline Project, a program designed to enforce and protect the rights of seriously ill and disabled low-income utility consumers in the State of Rhode Island. Learn more about the work of the Rhode Island Center for Justice at: centerforjustice.org.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, the NAACP Providence Branch, the George Wiley Center, the American Friends Service Committee – South East New England, and Providence Student Union today filed an open records request with the Rhode Island State Police requesting the full report of its investigation, conducted in conjunction with the Pawtucket Police Department, into the actions of a school resource officer who was recorded body-slamming a 14-year-old student at Pawtucket’s Tolman High School on October 14. The groups are also seeking the evidence gathered in the investigation, as well as documents related to any review of the pepper-spraying by Pawtucket Police of students protesting on the day following the incident.
The request, filed pursuant to the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA), was made after the State Police announced it had completed its review of the incident and found that the officer in question behaved appropriately. In their APRA request, the groups noted that they are not calling the report’s conclusion into question, but consider it important that the public be able to understand the report’s finding and see all the evidence used to reach this conclusion.
The public interest in both the incident and subsequent investigation is clear, the groups stated, pointing to the extensive media coverage of the incident, the subsequent student protests, and the important policy issues the incident raised. In requesting the release of the documents, the groups noted that in August the State Police voluntarily released a detailed report into the Cranston Police Department and its “Ticketgate” scandal.
“Like that report, release of this information would shed light on important government issues, and particularly the role, responsibilities and powers of school resource officers in the schools,” the groups stated. By releasing this information, the groups noted, the State Police would be acting in line with an October 20 memo released by Governor Gina Raimondo’s office that emphasized the importance of state agencies disclosing information under APRA whenever possible.
“In balancing the public’s right to know versus any general privacy interests, we clearly believe the public interest is paramount in this instance,” the groups stated. Recognizing the need to protect the privacy of some individuals whose statements contributed to the report, the groups reminded the State Police that APRA provides for the redaction of those names and other personally identifying information rather than withholding the records.
ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown said: “Release of the State Police report and materials is critical to promoting transparency and the public’s right to know in understanding this controversial incident that brought to light the many serious concerns raised by the routine presence of police officers in schools”
Martha Yager, program coordinator for the AFSC – SENE, said today: “I find it disturbing that it is deemed acceptable for a police officer to slam a child to the floor in school and arrest him. When a young person is loud and angry, should not the response be to patiently defuse the situation? Are not schools among the places we should teach children how to deal with their anger and distress? Why are children arrested when no law is broken? We need these documents to get a better handle on how to change a system that criminalizes children at school.”
NAACP Providence Branch President Jim Vincent added: “Although the police officer in question was cleared, the NAACP Providence Branch finds the use of force on a 14-year-old child very disturbing and calls into question whether police officers should be in schools in the first place.”
After the October incident at Tolman High School, the ACLU called on all school districts that currently have school resource officers to re-evaluate their use in the schools and to revise the agreements they have with police departments that set out their job responsibilities.
A copy of the APRA letter is available here: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/Tolman_High_School_State_Police_APRA.pdf
From an ACLU press release
More reading:
National Grid agreed to restore power to about two dozen homes this afternoon pending the resolution of a lawsuit.
The Rhode Island Center for Justice filed a class action lawsuit against National Grid and the RI Division of Public Utilities and Carriers on behalf of families that had their utilities terminated even though a member of the household suffered from severe or chronic medical conditions. Under state law these families should have been protected from shut-offs pending regulatory review by the RI Public Utilities Commission.
Though the case is not yet over, this move does offer preliminary relief to all families whose circumstances would be covered under the present lawsuit, which the Center for Justice estimates may be as many as 80 homes.
Camilo Viveiros, Executive Director of the George Wiley Center, which collaborated with the Center for Justice on the Lifeline Project, issued the following statement:
Today’s action is important for the families who will have their utilities restored before the holidays and the judgment is a crucial step toward assuring that Rhode Islander’s utility rights and protections are recognized and respected.‘Most Rhode Islanders would be shocked to find that people with serious medical conditions are routinely denied their medical protections stated in the Termination Rules when our taxpayer funded Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities grants National Grid permission to terminate thousands of households with seriously ill people, despite doctors’ documentation of life-threatening medical conditions.
‘The George Wiley Center is glad that it is increasingly coming to light the ways that the rights of utility consumers with medical conditions have been disregarded and disrespected.
‘Today’s action was an important step in recognizing how the RI Division of Public Utilities should be working to utilize the protections for vulnerable families rather than undermining protections in favor of the financial interests of the utility company.
‘The George Wiley Center will continue our efforts with the Rhode Island Center for Justice to expose the continued and larger patterns of utility injustice, as we organize to establish affordable utilities that would allow for access to important and essential utility services.”
[Note: The story originally said that a judge had ordered the restoration of power. In fact, National Grid agreed to restore power without a judge compelling the action]
The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (RIPUC) today adopted “emergency regulations” designed to make it easier for those who have fallen behind on their payments to National Grid to restore power and heat to their homes. Margaret E Curran, chair of the board, lead fellow commissioners Paul J Roberti and Herbert F DeSimone Jr in an unanimous vote to allow people to get their power restored for a 15 percent payment of the total owed upfront plus the adoption of a regular payment plan. Currently that number can be 50 percent or higher.
The George Wiley Center made the request on behalf of utility customers, as they have for the last seven years, but had requested the number be set at 10 percent. After some discussion, Curran arrived at 15 percent because in the past there was a tiered system that allowed for down payments of between 10 and 20 percent. Curran eliminated the tiers and came up with 15 percent as a compromise.
In the past it was routine to allow these emergency regulations to last for 3 months, but in the last two years this was shortened to thirty days. Curran suggested that the new thirty day mark is somehow “traditional,” though one might argue that recent changes to a tradition are not themselves traditional. Given the shortened time, it’s important, says George Wiley organizer Camilo Viveiros, to get the word out to families and individuals in need.
Over thirty people attended today’s RIPUC meeting a good crowd considering the last minute change in date and time of the meeting. Had the board met when originally planned, people would be that much closer to having their power restored. Though the board’s ruling came as a relief to many, to some it will have little effect. Anna told me that she has spent money she might have used to reinstate her gas heat to purchase electric space heaters. In order to have the money back on her debit card in time, she will have to return the space heaters today, wait for the money to be back on her card early next week, and make her payment then. This means that she and her children will be in a house with no heat all weekend.
Today’s ruling has no effect on those affected by National Grid’s policy of ignoring rules against shutting off power on the elderly and those suffering from illnesses. That lawsuit is still ongoing.
Further complicating this year’s execution of emergency relief is Governor Gina Raimondo‘s executive order 15-07, which will have the impact of delaying this much needed emergency regulation. Under this order, rules adopted by the RIPUC need to be reviewed and signed off on by the Office of Regulatory Reform (ORR) prior to the effective date. Why the governor is mandating the adoption of bureaucratic practices that delay good policy is not yet clear. The governor’s office has been asked for comment. The policy was supported by both Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed.
Despite these difficulties, today’s ruling is good news for many Rhode Islanders suffering from shut-offs due to financial constraints.
It was a packed house at the RI Center for Justice as Executive Director Robert McCreanor lead a discussion about the collaborative work of community organizers and public interest lawyers in the area of social justice. On the panel were organizers and lawyers who work with DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) and PrYSM (Providence Youth Student Movement) in Providence, and MFY’s Housing Project, the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP) in New York City.
What became clear over the next ninety minutes is that lawyering works in support of community organizing, not the other way around. What this means is that lawyers interested in social justice work need to “find the legal work that can support the organizers,” according to Shannah Kurland, a community lawyer and Soros Justice Fellow at PrYSM.
Kurland started as a community organizer at DARE, and struggled with her decision to become a lawyer. She was “not sure if becoming a lawyer was a right fit” and asked herself, “was it selling out?”
Michael Grinthal, supervising attorney for MFY’s Housing Project and Three-Quarter House Project, also started as a community organizer. For him, lawyering is a better fit, especially now as a father of a two year old. In New York, “all battles come back to housing because its so hard to live in NYC,” said Grinthal.
MFY “was the legal office for the welfare rights movement,” says Grinthal, making a local connection by adding, “George Wiley is one of the founding organizers in that movement.”
The funding for much legal service work comes through “legal services corporation” but under a law pushed through by Newt Gingrich (in a deft example of racist legislating, I should add) “organizations that get such money cannot do community organizing,” said Grinthal
Michael Zabelin, Staff Attorney at Rhode Island Legal Services and a lawyer who often works closely with DARE was never a community organizer. His work with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau made transition to working with DARE “the obvious thing to do.” Zabelin twice mentioned the influence of community lawyer Steve Fischbach on his ideas around being a lawyer. Fischbach’s work around housing issues was instrumental in getting Just Cause passed a few years ago.
Paulette Soltani works with MFY Legal Services as a community organizer for the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP). TOP started five years ago to help organize tenants living in three quarter houses, described as an unregulated housing industry that pretends to offer transitional services for people recently released from prison or substance abuse centers. “They open buildings and pack 6-8 people in,” says Soltani, they sometimes “force the use of certain medicaid providers, as a form of Medicaid fraud.”
People living in these conditions can find themselves evicted without due cause. Often they are locked out and separated from their possessions. This can have the effect of sending these tenants back onto the streets, into homeless shelters, or into conditions that can ultimately send them back to jail or substance abuse.
As a community organizer Soltani must often deal with the immediate and personal issues of those she meets, “but the point of an organizer is to target systems” in addition to base building, outreach and leadership development. Her goal is to allow “people to develop their voices” as leaders and to work within coalitions.
Christopher Samih-Rotondo, Community Organizer at DARE and the Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) agrees. He organizes low income communities of color in the south side of Providence. He works to develop team leaders for direct action and to effect legislative and policy change.
Samih-Rotondo spoke about Just Cause, passed because during the foreclosure crisis “banks became de facto landlords and would evict tenants without cause.” With lawyers his group “developed legislation to hold banks responsible for landlord tenant act.” The services DARE provides for individuals are done to “bring people in to form a movement, radicalize people, and change the system.”
Shannah Kurland doesn’t want this to sound too mercenary. Not all people who come to a group like DARE will stick around. Still, it’s important to help them. “Here’s a human being, part of our community, facing an issue,” said Kurland, later adding that, “a movement isn’t about one issue.” People who come one year to work on an issue like childcare may come back years later to do foreclosure work.
Samih-Rotondo thinks it is important to build individual capacities in people who come to his group for help. There are many things people can do without a lawyer, if they have the rules explained to them and can be empowered to act on their own behalf.
Soltani said that it is important for community organizers to meet “people where they are and understanding why they’re there in the first place. If they don’t come, ask why?”
For Sarath Suong, co-founder and executive director of PrYSM, lawyers have always been required. We needed “immigration lawyers early on to end Cambodian deportations.” More recently, PrYSM’s work on the Community Safety Act (CSA) required careful legal writing. The CSA has “twelve provisions that will curb profiling” and seeks to free people from “state, street and interpersonal violence.”
However, says Suong, “we know that policy will not save our communities. We know that communities need to save themselves, build a sense of resistance.”
Kurland agrees. “There are a ton of laws to protect you,” she says, “but they not enforced.” People in low-income communities of color learn that “here are your rights on paper,” now, “how do I stay safe on the street?” In other words, is asserting one’s rights in the moment worth the risk of being arrested or beaten?
When PrYSM started back in 2001, “only the police were engaging with SouthEast Asian youth” in Providence,” said Suong. PrYSM is based on Love, Power and Peace, and seeks to “hold Police accountable for the way they profile young people.”
The RI Center for Justice has a mission of “Protecting legal rights to ensure justice for vulnerable individuals, families, and communities in Rhode Island.” The Center currently works with Fuerza Laboral on the Wage Justice Project, with the Community Action Partnership of Providence (CAPP) on the Tenant Advocacy Project and with the George Wiley Center on it’s Lifeline Project.
More than 30 people entered the RI Public Utilities Commission (PUC) yesterday to demand an end to the epidemic of unfair utility shut-offs. Many in attendance have been victims of these shut-offs, even though they complied with the law and produced letters from their doctors indicating that their health would be seriously compromised by shut-offs. The protest was lead by the George Wiley Center and culminated in an action where dozens of protesters entered PUC offices to deliver a letter to the PUC board.
No one from the board would consent to meet with the protesters. Instead, Kevin Lynch, who works for the PUC, fed the crowd bureaucratic folderol for 30 minutes. (Readers with a peculiar masochistic streak can watch the entirety of that interaction in the last video below.) Mind you, this was after making the protesters wait in the tiny receiving room/staircase for nearly ten minutes. Ultimately, the letter was time stamped by a clerk before being filed away unread by board members.
Those among the protesters with specific issues left with those issues unresolved.
Though Lynch was professional and polite, he did nothing to resolve any issues that anyone in the crowd brought up. At first Lynch tried to dismiss the protesters by saying that since the George Wiley Center and the Rhode Island Center for Justice was suing over the issue, he would not be able comment, but Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, countered that the George Wiley center was not a plaintiff in the suit.
According to a George Wiley Center press release, “Every year tens of thousands of households in Rhode Island experience the stress of utility service termination due to unaffordable bills. It is shocking that in many of these homes live people struggling with medical conditions. This injustice is due to a loophole that allows the state’s Division of Public Utilities to grant National Grid permission to shut off households, even when their medical status is on file.”
The Wiley Center says such shut-off are, “inhumane and a threat to public health and safety.”
“Stopping utility shut-offs on people with medical conditions has been recommended by medical professionals who seek to protect and improve health,” says the George Wiley Center, “With access to utility service patients can be warm or cool as needed, see and not stumble in the dark, refrigerate medications, use nebulizers and oxygen tanks, take a warm bath. When service is shut off, basic needs are not met and medical conditions will likely worsen, sometimes leading to hospitalization and other serious consequences.”
Alan Costa has a medical condition that literally stops his heart a hundred times a minute. Without electricity, he dies. He fell behind on his electrical bills while undergoing two complex medical procedures in a very short period of time. He wonders why Governor Gina Raimondo doesn’t use her executive power, as the person who nominates people to the PUC board, to push for enforcement of laws that protect the health and well being of Rhode Island citizens instead on the profits of National Grid.
Annabel Alexander is 77 years old and suffers from a long list of ailments. (She showed me the list!) She has had her heat and her electricity turned off, and sleeps in her overcoat in her bed at night. National Grid will not make a deal with her to catch up on her bills for less than 50 percent of her income. “It’s a damn shame,” she says, “that we have to suffer while they are up there getting paychecks and living in mansions!”
In the next two videos we meet Kevin, who survived the Station Night Club fire. He pulled people out of that building that night, but today suffers from post traumatic stress and other ailments. On Saturday night he ran out of oil. On Monday morning his electricity was turned off. He needs to keep his medication chilled. He was promised that his condition would prevent a shut-off.
“I feel I’m being punished now, for things that people called me a hero for.”
Kevin was invited into the offices to see if there was a possibility of resolving his issue. He left disappointed, his case still pending.
Diane has asked her daughter for help with her bills. National Grid wants to take more than half her paycheck to turn her power back on. She has a host of ailments, and told the crowd that people with arthritis need a hot shower, as opposed to washing yourself of in water you’ve heated up in your microwave…
Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, rallied the crowd and explained the costs of these utility shut-offs in terms of human misery, but also in terms of dollars wasted.
Here is the full letter the protesters attempted to deliver to the PUC board, and it was signed by a long list of health care professionals, including Dr. Michael Fine, MD, former RI State Director of Health.
I’m writing to express my support for the Lifeline Project’s work to improve protection from utility termination for medically vulnerable households in our State. Unaffordable utility bills are especially prevalent among low-income medically vulnerable households because these households lack the financial resources to make ends meet and often require utility service for ongoing treatment of chronic illness. As a medical professional, I see first-hand the way that termination of utility service can lead to disastrous consequences for families such as an unexpected trip to the emergency room, the loss of a housing voucher, or eviction. Households with a permanently disabled individual, or a person with a pre-existing, serious medical condition such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, or diabetes, are among the most at risk because these conditions require electric medical devices or refrigerated medication.
The Lifeline Project is a collaboration between the Rhode Island Center for Justice and the George Wiley Center, which aims to protect and expand the rights of medically vulnerable households facing gas and electric utility shut off through the provision of legal assistance and community organizing. The Lifeline Project has identified a host of routinized, unfair and illegal practices and procedures on the part of the public utility company, National Grid, and the state regulatory agencies, the Division of Public Utilities and the Public Utilities Commission with respect to residential utility termination. These practices need to be fixed and in the meantime, medically vulnerable households need protection from shut-off.
I am specifically writing to support the Lifeline Project’s current campaign to challenge these illegal practices and urge National Grid and the state regulatory agencies to meet the following demands:
1. A one-year moratorium on termination for all accounts that are coded as ‘medical’.
2. The engagement of an independent third party monitor to review the Division of Public Utility’s approval of petitions for permission to terminate for all accounts coded as medical. The monitor will be selected by a joint committee composed of members of the George Wiley Center, the medical community, the Department of Health and the Public Utilities Commission.
3. The Public Utilities Commission immediately begin requiring data submissions from National Grid that are consistent with those requirements placed on the company in Massachusetts, as per the George Wiley Center’s formal request from March of 2015.
4. The Public Utilities Commission immediately begin accepting and thoroughly reviewing petitions for emergency restoration and providing timely responses to each request.
As a medical professional in this state, I understand the dire need to protect these consumers from the dangerous impacts of utility shutoff.
National Grid and the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers are being sued for turning off the electricity of seriously ill and disabled consumers, putting profits before people’s lives and in violation of Rhode Island state law.
The George Wiley Center and the RI Center for Justice have been working together since May to provide free legal assistance to “hundreds of low-income, medically vulnerable utility consumers.” Their collaboration, said Robert McCreanor, RI Center for Justice executive director, lead to the realization that existing state laws were not being enforced. Since National Grid refuses to negotiate in good faith or follow the law, a class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday morning.
The plaintiffs named in the suit, “suffer from severe medical conditions including chronic respiratory failure, which requires electric powered oxygen machines. They asked National Grid to take their medical conditions into consideration when setting up a payment plan for their back bills, as required by law. When National Grid sent shut-off notices without making the required legal determination, these consumers looked to the state regulator of public utilities for protection but were repeatedly denied. Some plaintiffs required emergency medical treatment and hospitalization after their electric and gas services were shut off.”
Shane Ward, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, told the crowd gathered at the press conference about his experience having the electricity turned off at his home, where his 74 year old mother has Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. She requires the use of a respirator. After being told he was in arrears with his bill and given a shut off date, National Grid arrived a week early. When Ward asked for a few minutes to switch his mother to a different respiratory system, he was denied, and the electricity was turned off, sending his mother into an epileptic fit.
Attorneys are requesting immediate relief through a temporary restraining order. Robert McCreanor estimates at least 3,000 Rhode Islanders may be affected by this class action suit. A restraining order would prohibit termination of service to the proposed class and restoration of service for those now shut off.
“The system is broken,” said McCreanor, “National Grid routinely violates the law and the Division of Public Utilities automatically grants the shut offs National Grid requests. The consequences for seriously ill and disabled consumers are costly for our communities.”
Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center, has battled for years on behalf of utility consumers. Many of the laws National Grid seems content to ignore were passed in the RI General Assembly only through the extraordinary lobbying and organizing work of the Wiley Center under the leadership of poverty advocate Henry Shelton.
“We’re simply asking for the rules that are on the books to be practiced, they’re there to protect people. We’re asking the Division of Public Utilities to follow the law…”
“Thousands are getting shut off notices today,” said Camilo Viveiros, lead organizer of the George Wiley Center to the 22 people gathered around a table hoping to avoid losing power on May 1, “Over 20,000 people in Rhode Island have their power shut off every year.”
Viveiros and the the George Wiley Center want to prevent unnecessary shut-offs. He talked about the Henry Shelton Act, named for the Rhode Island anti-poverty activist who shepherded a bill through the General Assembly that allows for “more than 50% of utility bills” to be forgiven under certain circumstances.
According to a George Wiley Center handout, “Utility Consumers of Rhode Island have… rights under state law and the Rules and Regulations of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Division of Public Utilities and Carriers (Division), which have the ‘jurisdiction to grant an exception to the provision of these regulations to any party for good cause shown.’”
If you’re behind on your utility bills, you have the right to “to both an informal hearing and a formal hearing before an impartial Division Hearing Officer. Utility shut-offs are prohibited until this hearing process is complete.” If a deal can not be made to your satisfaction, you have the “right to appeal the final Division hearing decision to Superior Court.”
You have the “right to an affordable payment plan. The Division has the authority to order payment terms which are less stringent than the applicable Residential Payment Plan.”
Further, if a customer is seriously ill, or if there is an infant in the home under the age of 24 months, you have the “right to protection” from a utility shut-off. “A lot of people with medical conditions get shut off in the summer time,” noted Viveiros, “A lot of Rhode Islanders would be shocked by that.”
It can pay to know your rights.
There is “the right for a ‘protected’ class of customers to maintain their gas and electric utility services during the Winter Moratorium from November 1st through April 15th. (Protected status for those who are disabled, LIHEAP recipients, seriously ill, unemployed, households with all over 62 years or children under 2 years.)”
You also have the “right to proper representation from the Consumer Unit of the Attorney General’s Office.”
We don’t have these rights, says Viveiros, “because some corporations decided to be nice to us. We had to fight for them.” Often, cautions a flier, “consumers calling the Division for help are turned away without being informed of their rights or about how to use the law.” Viveiros and the George Wiley Center are trying to fix that problem.
To that end the George Wiley Center has scheduled a series of trainings and will be happy to guide people through the sometimes difficult process of dealing with out of control utility bills. They’ve developed a 10 point plan of action:
When people deal with utility companies unprepared, they will accept deals that only serve to plunge them into deeper debt. Noting that National Grid made $4 billion last year, Viveiros said, “We don’t need people to go home and feel depressed because they don’t have the money to give to people who are doing well.”
A woman told the story of having her electricity turned off. She learned that her gas stove required electricity to work, meaning she couldn’t cook. Her gas heat required electricity, meaning she had no heat. She ended up borrowing money from her children, running the risk of messing up her children’s finances. The woman felt shame, guilt and helplessness, simply because she fell behind on her bills.
No one is poor by choice. It is essential that we know our rights and come together as a community to compel large corporations to treat us with respect and dignity. “We’re trying to create a caring community,” says Viveiros, “where it isn’t all about the bills.”
Contact:
George Wiley Center, 32 East Ave, Pawtucket, RI 02860
cell: 401-338-1665 office: 401-728-5555
Lynn Collette of Wakefield is a single mother of three and the seemingly glorious change of seasons and the impending cold weather it will bring could have serious consequences for her family.
“I had my electricity turned off and my heat is unfortunately electric,” she wrote in an email to the Public Utilities Commission.
She’s managed to set aside $2,000 and to collect another $600 from local churches and charities to pay own the debt, she said in her email, but it still isn’t enough to get National Grid to restore her electricity. The utility company often requires customers pay 25 to 50 percent of an outstanding balance bill before it will restore service.
The landmark Henry Shelton Act, passed in 2006, requires utility companies restore service to low income customers if they can pay 10 percent of their bill and pay off the outstanding debt in 36 months. But there are many Rhode Islanders behind on their bills that don’t qualify for this program. And a new administrative rule passed last year requires people to pay down their debt before they can again take advantage of the 10 percent rule.
Camilo Viveiros, an organizer with the George Wiley Center, said there are more than 15,000 people who will have a utility shut off this year. He and others will implore the Public Utilities Commission today at its public meeting (10 am at its headquarters at 89 Jefferson Blvd., in Warwick) to repeal last year’s rule change and allow the 10 percent rule to apply to more low-income people.
“We are hopeful that the Public Utilities Commission will continue their tradition of heeding our request to reduce peoples needed down payments so they can get their utilities turned back on before November 1st, but we also want them to make it possible for more rather than less people to be able to restore their utilities,” he said.
In a press release yesterday, the George Wiley Center said:
“People shouldn’t be penalized for living through prolonged poverty and being in an ongoing economic predicament, for struggling with unemployment, living on fixed incomes due to illness, disabilities or retirement. Although our main demand is to allow people with low incomes to pay 10% down for utility restoration, the GWC opposes barriers that disqualify those who are struggling in this difficult economy.”
The state Division of Public Utilities is recommending last year’s rule stay in place, and it favors a tiered process:
(a) for a customer owing less than $1000, 20% of the balance owed must be paid and the remainder of that balance must be paid within 18 months;
(b) for a customer owing at least $1000 but less than $2500, 15% of the balance owed must be paid and the remainder of that balance must be paid within 24 months;
(c) for a customer owing $2500 or more, 10% of the balance owed must be paid and the remainder of that balance must be paid within 36 months unless the Company chooses to extend such time period;
(d) the customer requesting a payment plan under this provision, Part V, Section 4(G) either did not participate in one of the plans listed in Part V, Section 4(G)(a)-(c) in a prior year or did participate and currently has a balance due on his or her account that is the same or less than that customer had upon enrollment in a prior year plan listed in Part V, Section (4)(G)(a)-(c) unless the customer makes an additional down payment sufficient to bring the customer’s balance to the level equal to or less than the starting balance when the customer previously participated.
And here’s the letter legislative leaders sent the PUC on the issue.
The issue is one the PUC, activists and many low income Rhode Islanders deal with every autumn.
This weekend look for the gathering of friends, Rhode Island College educators, progressives, folkies and family members of the late Richard J. Walton, who come to the Red Bandana Award to pay homage and remember him. With his prominent long white beard and red bandana, decked out in blue jean overalls and wearing a baseball cap, Walton was a dedicated advocate of worker rights and committed to the nurturing of young people as a college professor at Rhode Island College. He gave hundreds of hours of service every month to organizations including Amos House, the George Wiley Center, Providence Niquinhomo Sister City Project, the Green Party, and Stone Soup Folk Arts Foundation.
The Red Bandana Fund was also created to be a legacy to help sustain Rhode Island’s community of individuals and organizations that embody the lifelong peace and justice ideas of Walton. Through the Red Bandana Fund, an annual financial award will be made to an organization or individual whose work best represents the ideals of peace and social justice that exemplify Walton’s life work.
Stephen Graham, a member of committee organizing the fundraiser, noted that 12 nominations received. “There were many deserving nominations, all of which one could make an excellent argument for the award,” he said. “After much deliberation and agonizing, the Red Bandana Fund decided to give not one but two awards,” noted Stephen Graham, a member of the committee. “Awards will be given to longtime community activist and hell-raiser, Henry Shelton, and the other to the passionate, unrelenting organizing workers called the Providence Student Union (PSU),” he says, noting that their work embodies the spirit and work of Walton, a well-known social activist in the Rhode Island area who died in 2012.
“Richard would have loved the choices,” noted Graham, a very close friend of Walton’s and a retired community activist.
The Red Bandana Fund celebration takes place on Sunday, June 8 at Nick-a-Nees, 75 South Street. In Providence from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The event is open to the public and donations accepted. Shelton, a former Catholic priest and long-time director of the Pawtucket-based George Wiley Center, is known throughout the region for his steadfast commitment to bettering the lives of all Rhode Islanders, especially the poor and disadvantaged. As a longtime advocate for the needy, he has been a fixture on the streets and at the statehouse for decades, advocating for fairness in housing, public transportation, and medical care.
“It is not an understatement to say that Shelton is the conscience of this state and has been for a long, long time,” says Graham, noting that there was no way Shelton could be ignored.
The committee also honored a new generation of young people working to make a better world, added Graham. So, the Red Bandana Fund also recognizes the PSU for its groundbreaking work done in addressing important issues of education in creative and powerful ways. The PSU is an important voice in the debate over the value of high-stakes testing, challenging the NECAP tests as a requirement for graduation, and has forced officials and politicians to address their concerns, he said.
“It is their commitment to grass-roots organizing and social change, at such a young age, that has earned them the recognition and thanks of the Red Bandana Fund and for all those fighting for justice in today’s society,” says Graham. Coming up with a name for Walton’s fundraiser was tied to his unique fashion sense and was the idea of his daughter Cathy Barnard and Richard, her brother. Like most people, Richard had a vivid, visual image of his father, who had long white hair and beard, being known for wearing his trademark worn blue jean overalls, a red bandana and Stone Soup baseball cap. After Walton died his close friends came over to his house and wanted one of his red bandanas to remember him. Thus, the red bandana became the perfect moniker and recognition for the annual fundraiser.
Says Bill Harley, also on the organizing committee, The Red Bandana Fund is a continuation of Walton’s tradition of having an annual birthday bash – usually held the first Sunday in June, to raise money for Amos House & the Providence-Niquinohomo Sister City Project and other progressive causes. Over 24 years, Walton had raised over $40,000 for these favorite charities, attracting hundreds of people each year including the state’s powerful political and media elite to his family compound located at Pawtuxet Cove in Warwick
“We hope all the people who attended Richard’s parties in the past [1988 to 2011] will show up for the event and you can bring your favorite dish for the potluck,” adds Harley.
“This is our second year giving the award,” said Bill Harley, a member of the selection committee. “We chose the awardees from a great list of nominations, and decided to acknowledge both young organizers, and one of our long-time heroes. Too often, the people who are in the trenches working for us don’t get recognized. We hope the Award begins to address that shortcoming.”
According to Graham, “last year’s event was more of a concert and tribute to Walton.” Over 300 people attended the inaugural Red Bandana fundraising event in 2013 at Shea High School, raising more than $11,000 from ticket sales, a silent auction and raffle. At this event, the first recipient, Amos House, received a $1,000, he said. Graham says the well-known nonprofit was chosen because of its very long relationship with Walton. He was a founding board member, serving for over 30 years, being board chair for a number of years. For almost three decades, the homeless advocate spent an overnight shift with the men who lived in the 90-Day Shelter Program each Thursday bringing them milk and cookies. Each Friday morning he would make pancakes and eggs in the soup kitchen for hundreds of men and women who came to eat a hot meal.
As to getting this year’s Red Bandana Fund off the ground, Harley says: “It’s been a year of fits and starts to make this thing work. I believe that the establishment of this award, and the honoring of people on a yearly basis, will help us build a community here that can transform our culture. It’s a little thing down the road, I can envision this award meaning more and more to recipients, and to the community those recipients come from.”
Walton touched people’s lives, Rick Wahlberg, one of the organizers. “Everyone had such an interesting story to tell about Richard,” he stated, noting that the Warwick resident, known as a social activist, educator, humanitarian, very prolific writer, and a co-founder of Pawtucket’s Stone Soup Coffee House “had made everyone feel that they themselves had a very special, close relationship with him.” Like last year’s inaugural event, Wahlberg expects to see many of Walton’s friends at the upcoming June 8th fundraiser. He and others attending will view this event as a “gathering of the clan” since those attending will be Walton’s extended Rhode Island family.
So, block out some time on your busy Sunday. Come to the Red Bandana Fund event to remember our good old friend, Richard Walton, and support his legacy and positive impact in making Rhode Island a better place to live and work. Enjoy the gathering of caring people who come to recognize the advocacy efforts of Shelton and the PSU to carry on Walton’s work.
Spread the word.
Core participants in organizing this year’s Red Bandana Fund include, Bill Harley, Stephen Graham, Jane Falvey, Barbara & Rick Wahlberg. Other participants included Jane Murphy, Jodi Glass, Cathy Barnard and Richard Walton, Jr.
For more information about donating to The Red Bandana Fund, click here.
Herb Weiss, LRI’12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers health care, aging, and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.
Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t let utility companies turn off the heat on poor people who are behind on their bills less than a week before Christmas, but the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission might.
It meets Friday at 9 am to consider weakening the protections that prevent utility companies from shutting off service to people who are behind on their bills.
“Some of the proposed changes include weakening protection for the disabled and seniors, narrowing income eligibility levels, removing protection for the unemployed, and shortening protection in the winter time,” said activist Camilo Viveiros. “They are proposing gutting the rules by cutting 55 pages of crucial rules down to 8 pages of diluted protections. Every year 20-30,000 Rhode Island households experience the loss of utility service due to termination, numbers that are already too high and would increase if the proposed rule changes are accepted.”
The George Wiley Center is circulating a petition in hopes of convincing the three-member state public utilities board to not allow utility companies to turn off poor people’s heat and electricity when they are struggling to pay their bills.
The three members of the Public Utilities Commission are: former US Attorney Meg Curran, former assistant attorney general Paul Roberti, who worked in that office for 17 years and Herb DeSimone, an attorney who has represented Providence and Jamestown. All three commissioners are attorneys. Here’s more on each of them.
Here’s the full release from the George Wiley Center:
Please sign the change.org petition and attend the RI Public Utilities Commission (RI PUC) open meeting this Friday (Dec.20th) at 9am, 89 Jefferson Blvd, Warwick, RI. The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (RI PUC) is a body of 3 appointed commissioners that makes decisions regarding statewide utility issues.
The RI PUC has put on their agenda for Friday a vote on changes to their rules regarding utility termination. These dramatic changes propose weakening the rules that have offered people important protections from having their heat and electricity shut off. Some of the proposed changes include weakening protection for the disabled and seniors, narrowing income eligibility levels, removing protection for the unemployed, and shortening protection in the winter time. They are proposing gutting the rules by cutting 55 pages of crucial rules down to 8 pages of diluted protections. Every year 20-30,000 Rhode Island households experience the loss of utility service due to termination, numbers that are already too high and would increase if the proposed rule changes are accepted.
We need to speak out today to demand that the RI PUC not vote on any rule changes until they have held hearings across the state and in the evening so working families may attend. So far they have only held one hearing at their Warwick location during the working hours of the day and none of the rules have been translated into any language other than English. This is the first time in over a decade that they are attempting to make substantial changes to these rules. Last time, they held hearings in other parts of the state, and this time we request more hearings to assure a democratic process where people who are most affected can participate. Voting to accept the proposed rules would put thousands of seniors, disabled people, people with serious medical conditions, immigrants, children and low-income families at increased risk of being shut-off.
Take a minute today to sign this petition to the RI PUC demanding that they postpone their vote on these harmful rule changes and that they hold accessible hearings across the state. Contact us at georgewileycenterri@gmail.
com if your organization is willing to submit an organizational letter that highlights the impact of their proposed rule changes on the people you work with (here is a link to a comparison between the current rules and their proposed rule changes). Please attend the RI PUC open meeting this Friday, December 20th, at 9am. It is important that we have a strong presence to pressure the PUC from passing these rule changes. Your attendance will make a difference!
Thank you for signing the petition, for spreading the word and for coming on Friday. Your actions this week are important in the lives of struggling Rhode Islanders for years to come!
ABC6 reports that the progressive community based organization – the George Wiley Center – has first-hand experience of the kind of “staggering mismanagement” that has led Mayor Angel Taveras and Council President Michael Solomon to call for the resignation of director Frank Corbishley and the State of Rhode Island to announce that its cutting off all funding to ProCap:
One of the Programs effected by the Agency’s issues is the George Wiley Center in Pawtucket. The center is the middle man between people that need help paying their utilities and programs like ProCAP that provide those services. For the past year, workers at the George Wiley Center say they can’t do their job, because ProCAP hasn’t been doing theirs.
Drawers of files at George Wiley Center show just how many Rhode Islanders come seeking help for paying their utility bills. It’s part of Debbie Clark’s job to refer them to programs like ProCAP.
“They’re the focal point of where everything starts, they’re where people can move on to the next step,” Clark says.
Clark says working with ProCAP has become a battle over the last year, hindering her from helping others.
“People are calling they’re not getting treated properly, I just think the whole thing needs to be revamped.”
(…)Clark says her program has had communication problems with ProCAP for a while and is hoping for change.
“Our hands are tied, we can’t change what’s happening at ProCAP, we can’t affect what’s happening at ProCAP, and all we can do is help these people on what to do moving forward.”
