Fall is upon us. Cooler temperatures are welcome, and people are venturing outside to enjoy the weather. But with the cooler temperatures comes worry for a lot of folks. Its not time yet, but soon our furnaces will be turned on, and with that comes a big utility bill.
We have a lot of fine landlords who do their best to make sure that the homes they rent are safe, clean, and have good heating systems.
Unfortunately, we also have landlords who dont care about their tenants. They collect the rent, and thats as far as their interest in their tenants goes.
The homes they lease have parts of the foundation missing. Sometimes the plumbing has no protection from the elements, and the windows and doors dont seal properly.
In Iola, a house is up to code if it can maintain a 60-degree temperature. Thats all it takes. It doesnt matter if the thermostat has to be set at 90, and two space heaters are running to maintain that 60 degrees. As long as its warm enough, the method for achieving that temperature doesnt matter.
Whose fault is this? Well, I say it is the landlords fault and the fault of our city codes.
If the code were written so that a home must maintain the temperature that the thermostat is set to and then hold the landlords accountable to bring the property they own up to code that would go a long way toward fixing part of the problem. It seems like a simple solution.
The next part of the problem is our citys utility policies. In Iola, there is no such thing as a partial payment with a promise to pay that will keep utilities on and no added reconnect fee. There is no such thing as I get paid tomorrow, can you give me a days grace without turning my utilities off. Nope. That doesnt happen here. We see so many who come in with shut off notices, who have stretched their dollar as far as it will go and who could pay their bill if they were given a few days past shut off to pay.
The city will not shut off utilities if the temperature will be below 32 degrees. But if its 33 degrees, utilities are shut off. However, if the bill gets paid before the utilities are actually shut off, a shut off fee is still charged even though services were never halted.
How can our city policies be so punitive to the poorest among us? Why is it up to us to put up a fight to change these policies when it should be a given that our city fathers, who we have elected to make good decisions for us, would consider more than the percentage of us who can pay our bills on time? Why cant our city administrator and city council and mayor look at the utility policy and see that it is harmful to the poor?
Though they are poor, they still require heat and water and electricity.
Many are disabled, elderly, or have small children in the home and must keep their utilities on for them to be safe. Shouldnt that be the least that our city government does? We hope that they will reconsider our utility policies with those people in mind and adopt a more humane policy before tragedy occurs.
Kindness matters!
