Noemy Rodriguez has had overdue utility bills stacking up over the last eight years.
Little has been easy for the single mother in East Boston. While working part-time as an organizer with the local nonprofit GreenRoots, Rodriguez cares for her three children, one of which suffers from epilepsy while the other two navigate attention deficit disorders. That’s left Rodriguez regularly shuffling between her apartment and work, getting her children off to school, and juggling medical appointments.
When she’s not fending off notices — and paying off some of her utility bill debt just in time — to avoid getting her electricity and heat shut off, that is.
“When you owe money and are in debt and receiving disconnection notices many times, it’s a stressful life,” Rodriguez, who immigrated to the US nearly 20 years ago from El Salvador, said through a Spanish translator. “It’s either bringing food to the table for your kids or paying your bills.”
Rodriguez is in much better standing now, after she finally qualified for a low-income discount rate for her energy bills and as of six months ago was enrolled in a payment forgiveness plan with Eversource, her electric provider. But she is one of some 800,000 customers of the six investor-owned utilities in Massachusetts saddled with late or overdue energy payments, known as arrearages.
Arrearages are seen as one clear indicator of financial distress within a household, particularly for low-income customers. Energy costs, which in Massachusetts and around the country have risen sharply, are one of the top household concerns in the Bay State and have contributed to an affordability crisis that has erupted onto the national political landscape.
More Context
Published by MassINC