Utility Justice Project: Access to Affordable Utility Services in Historically Disinvested and Rural Communities

By Gio Brackbill, Utility Justice Project Manager

Introduction

The Pennsylvania Utility Law Project launched the Utility Justice Project (UJP), an initiative to work in historically underserved and disinvested communities in the Northeast region of Pennsylvania to improve access to safe and affordable utility services. Communities of color in rural areas face unique barriers connecting to and maintaining safe and stable utility service. In this blog post, we will examine the historical background in the region, address the target communities’ unique challenges, and discuss the project approach.

Historical Background

The Utility Justice Project is working to serve the most vulnerable populations, specifically historically disinvested communities of color and immigrants. The Institute for Public Policy & Economic Development at Wilkes University conducted a study on redlining and patterns of racial segregation and poverty in Northeast PA.

Their research discusses that Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) delineated districts with the highest concentrations of Black populations as the riskiest and most undesirable, in a practice known as redlining. Residents in redlined districts were not eligible for financing or credit that enabled them to buy or repair homes. The denial of equal access to property ownership blocked an important avenue to building intergenerational wealth, as homes in redlined districts continue to have patterns of lower values, rents, and occupancy rates. To further perpetuate segregation, racially restrictive covenants written into property deeds excluded nonwhite residents from more expensive, more desirable districts.

Vestiges of redlining practices remain prevalent today. Currently, in Northeastern PA neighborhoods with a higher share of nonwhite residents, poverty rates are generally much higher than average. In recent years, Puerto Ricans and immigrant populations have been attracted to rural Northeast PA, in part due to lower cost of living compared to larger metropolitan areas of the state.

In Lozano v. City of Hazelton, Hazelton was the first to pass the Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance (IIRAO). Subsequently, over 100 other variations of the ordinance were passed, prompting constitutional challenges across the U.S. Initially, an injunction filed by the ACLU-PA blocked enforcement of the Hazelton IIRAO; and then a series of legal victories has prevented any of the anti-immigrant housing and employment ordinances from ever taking effect.

Communities across Northeast PA are working to improve relations with its immigrant populations, as many public interest groups contend with policies that overburden the lives of Spanish-speaking residents and attempt to keep them from living and working in the region.

Unique Challenges to Utility Accessibility and Affordability

Energy

Energy burden is calculated by the percentage of a household’s income spent on home energy bills for needs such as heating, cooling, lighting, and cooking. The median energy burden is 45% higher for Native American households than for non-Hispanic white households, 43% higher for Black households, and 20% higher for Hispanic households.

Systemic exclusions, under-investments, discriminative lending practices, and limited housing choices have limited these communities’ access to efficient and healthy housing. Whereas inefficient housing is a key factor leading to disproportionately high energy burdens, these disparities drive cycles of racialized poverty,

Geographical factors drive higher energy burdens for rural families as well. The reliance on deliverable fuels, oil, or propane for heat that is prevalent among rural households in the Mid-Atlantic region has implications for energy costs as the prices are more volatile and expensive than other fuel types. Improving access to utility customer assistance programs and energy efficiency upgrades are key to addressing issues in communities that experience the highest energy burdens.

Water

Historical residential racial segregation also helps explain race-based disparities in access to affordable essential water and sewer services today. For example, communities of color have been excluded from investments in water and sewer services by local governments that used ‘underbounding’ during the era of legal racial segregation to keep non-white neighborhoods that settled in rural pockets from being included in the town’s official boundaries.

Currently, rising water rates are more likely to impact historically disinvested communities of color. Municipal policies and practices, including water liens and service disconnections, results in a disproportionate risk for foreclosure and eviction. Communities of color who cannot pay their water bills bear the brunt water affordability crisis, often with the collateral consequences of losing their homes, suffering health, inability to retain custody of their children, and facing criminal charges or other legal action.

Telecommunication and Broadband

Additional challenges, such as lack of access to stable telecommunication, serve to compound disparities in utility accessibility and affordability. A study conducted by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania found that “median speeds across most areas of the state” did not meet the FCC definition of broadband: 25Mbps in download speed.

The significant disadvantage that rural communities experience due to poor internet access was exacerbated when COVID suddenly caused state agencies, public schools, and workplaces to shift to completely online. For example, since the Census Bureau does not deliver physical copies of the Census to P.O. boxes, the state’s rural counties are in serious jeopardy of being undercounted in the Census. Low turnout impacts funding for schools, social services, health care, and representation in Congress, so in turn, rural communities are left further behind.

UJP’s Multifaceted Regional Approach

PULP’s multi-faceted approach to service delivery intentionally draws together local service providers and other agencies to generate referrals, increase cross-collaboration, and improve intersectional outcomes. This synergistic approach ensures that PULP’s case priorities and its delivery of client services are rooted local communities and build upon existing networks to better serve the diverse needs of consumers living in these communities. Last year, PULP provided 30 webinar trainings to over 3,000 advocates and attorneys across the state.

Outreach Efforts in Difficult-to-Reach Groups

The diverse populations PULP seeks to serve through this project are difficult to reach, due to inequities in the distribution and availability of assistance. Historical inequities in the application of laws and policies have also created mistrust and fear amongst communities of color and immigrant communities. This makes it difficult for individuals from historically underserved populations to feel comfortable and confident seeking assistance. To overcome these unique barriers, it is critical that social and legal services organizations devote additional time and resources to build trust in underserved communities through targeted and intentional outreach. Language and cultural barriers often prevent individuals and families from coming forward to seek services on their own, so it is key for community outreach to meet people where they are to be most effective in disinvested areas.

PULP seeks to overcome these challenges by investing dedicated time and resources to work specifically in these communities. Through fostering strong partnerships with local and community-based organizations – including advocacy groups whose primary mission is serving the target population – PULP will advance racial justice and equity issues as they pertain to the just and equitable access of utility services.

Facilitating Through Existing Strong, Trusted Community Leaders

PULP is building a coalition of local community development groups, service agencies, housing providers, and advocacy organizations to coordinate available resources in response to systemic utility issues and injustices that arise in historically underserved communities. The goal of the coalition will be to improve cross-sector collaboration in the delivery of housing and energy-related programming.

PULP is leveraging its existing relationships to identify new partners in the Northeast region whose primary mission is in service to underserved groups who were overlooked by past efforts and develop strategies to address the needs of these households. Collaborating with a variety of partners will help to identify overarching patterns in cases where the inability to connect or maintain utility services is preventing the client from accessing housing, where the loss of utility service will trigger an eviction or otherwise interfere with the client’s housing stability, or where disruption to service threatens family unity.

Conclusion

PULP’s UJP will result in broad systemic improvements to the lives of historically disinvested low income neighborhoods through removing barriers to service and improving utility programs and policies to more equitably serve low income people. This will help to ensure that historically underserved individuals can achieve housing and financial stability over the long term. Being safe and healthy in our homes is not just impactful for individuals – ensuring that families have running water, electricity, heat, and stable telecommunication and internet services in their home are also crucial to protecting community health.

Further Resources