Community Action to provide utility assistance opportunity

Residents of Hays County, along with those of Caldwell and Blanco counties, have an opportunity to sign up and receive utility bill assistance with the help of Community Action, Inc. of Central Texas.

Citizens looking to sign up in person have the opportunity to do so on Wednesday, May 4 from 5-8 p.m. and Wednesday, May 11 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the San Marcos Public Library.

“This event is just to bring awareness to our communities, residents that live in Hays and Caldwell and Blanco counties, if they needed assistance, paying for their gas or their electric bills, we have extra funding from the federal government to provide, I guess, customers who qualify under a certain income level assistance to pay their bills for up to a year,” said Francesca Ramirez, Community Services Coordinator for Community Action.

Income is considered in order to qualify for assistance. Individuals seeking help must be residents of Hays, Caldwell or Blanco County and at least one member of the household must be a documented U.S. citizen.

“We go by the 150% of the poverty guidelines from the government,” Ramirez said. So, depending on how many people are in the household is the income that we go by.”

Those that plan to attend the in-person event must provide:

•Photo ID of everyone 18 and older in the household.

•Birth certificates of everyone in the household.

•Any proof of income from April 1- May 10 for anyone 18 and older.

•Current Electric and/or Gas bill.

“There’s a lot of people that still don’t know that this is available to them and this year, we’ve gotten extra funding to help out residents, so we thought we would do a public event this year to try to bring in new customers,” Ramirez said.

Hays County residents in need of assistance that can’t make the two in person events can visit the Community Action website to access an online application in English or Spanish.

According to Ramirez, she is also looking into finding locations to host similar in person events in Caldwell and Blanco counties as well. Staff will be in attendance at the San Marcos Public Library event to provide guidance and share more information about the resources that Community Action, Inc. of Central Texas provides.

“A lot of people don’t even know that we exist or haven’t heard of it. So hopefully, we can spread the word about all our different departments,” Ramirez said.

Applications may take 4 to 6 weeks to process. For additional information or questions, residents can contact Ramierez via email at framirez@communityaction.com, or by phone at 512-392-1161 extension 309.

agonzales

@sanmarcosrecord.com

Twitter: @alyssagonz89