13300 Eligibility Requirements
13310 General Eligibility Requirements - Recipients must be living in a Kansas county and legally capable of acting on their own behalf. Legally incapacitated persons are ineligible unless assistance is applied for by a guardian or conservator.
No household may receive LIEAP from the State of Kansas and from a Kansas tribal LIHEAP program during the same benefit year. United Tribes of Kansas and Southeast Nebraska and the Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas are the only Tribes administering a Low Income Energy Assistance Block Grant Program to Kansas residents who are Tribal members. Tribal members will be referred to their tribe to apply for energy assistance.
No person or household may receive LIEAP benefits more than once in a calendar year.
Emancipated minors may receive assistance on their own behalf according to regulations
contained in 2112.
13320 Household Definition - The LIEAP household definition is "any group of person(s), living together and sharing the same dwelling address and heating source, and whose heating energy costs and other common living costs, are met from the income or resources available to any member(s) within the group." Household members include individuals who are away from the home due to employment, e.g., truck drivers and salesmen. The following exceptions apply in determining household membership:
Paid live-in attendants are not considered household members if they provide child care, medical services, or housekeeper services for the applicant, necessary due to age or illness, even if the attendant is a relative, except when the attendant is a spouse or the parent of a dependent child(ren). Persons receiving care in the paid attendant's home are not considered household members, if the attendant is the applicant. If the applicant is the person receiving the care, the paid attendant will not be considered a household member, unless the attendant is the spouse.
In documented commercial room and board arrangements, a landlord and tenant living in the same dwelling are considered separate households. Multi-family benefit levels are issued in such boarding situations.
Individuals in congregate living situations who do not pay a fuel vendor directly for fuel are categorically ineligible, e.g., persons in dormitories, adult care facilities, and nursing homes.
The application shall include all persons that normally reside in the household. The income of all household members living together, is used to determine eligibility. If a household member is or turns eighteen in the month of application, his/her income is countable.
13330 Citizenship and Alienage Requirements - Households must contain at least one member who is a U.S. Citizen or "qualified alien." Applicants currently receiving Food Assistance, cash or medical assistance will categorically meet the alienage requirement for energy assistance. All other immigrant applicants must meet the alienage requirement by providing Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) proof of lawful permanent residency. Qualified aliens include: legal permanent residents, refugees, asylees, individuals paroled into the U.S. for a period of at least one year, individuals whose deportation has been withheld, individuals granted conditional entry, and certain individuals who are victims of domestic violence. Alienage status appears on the back of the INS identification card. Document numbers which may indicate lawful permanent residency include, but are not limited to: I-94, I-256, I-551, I-571, I-688B, and I-766. Aliens who enter the United States temporarily with no intention of abandoning their residence in a foreign country are not eligible for LIEAP. See 2140 and subsections and Appendices A-1 & A-3 for guidance on aliens admitted for lawful permanent residence.
Household members who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents will not be considered in determining household size, although the income from such members will be counted in determining total household income. The "Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program" may be used for verifying questionable INS cards.
13340 Energy Vulnerability Requirement - Applicants meet the energy vulnerability requirement by demonstrating responsibility for purchasing the primary heating energy at their current residence. In order to be eligible, the household’s residence must have measurable (metered) energy usage specific to the residence and the household must pay for energy through one of the following methods:
Household purchases primary fuel from a commercial provider using an adult household member's name.
Household pays the landlord for primary fuel costs included in the rent, or owed in addition to the rent.
Household pays a commercial fuel vendor for purchases billed to the landlord's account.
Properties with “shared” heating source (i.e. common boiler) that don’t have independent meters for each unit that can account for specific fuel usage are not energy vulnerable and therefore ineligible for a LIEAP benefit.
Homeless households currently living in emergency shelters meet the vulnerability requirement if they owe a debt for heating costs incurred at a prior Kansas address.
Households who cut their own wood do not meet the energy vulnerability requirement (even if wood is the primary heating fuel).
Renters in HUD Section 8 Voucher and Certificate Programs and some Farmers Home Administration Programs receive federal "deep subsidies" for rent. The household only meets the LIEAP energy vulnerability if it:
Pays current residence heating energy costs directly to a utility, or
Pays"excess" utility costs billed by the landlord for costs exceeding the normal monthly heating fuel consumption, or
Pays the landlord for the exact amount of a utility's actual billing.
Households living in subsidized housing where the heating fuel costs are included in their rent are not LIEAP eligible.
Renters living in other Farmers Home Administration (FHA) Projects receive more limited rental assistance and are not required to meet the above vulnerability tests.
13350 Self-Payment Requirement - Households who pay a fuel vendor either directly or through the landlord, must show that payments were made in a three-month period of a four-month window toward the energy costs incurred at the address. The applicable three-month period would be any successive three-month period beginning three months prior to the month of application through the date of application. Total energy payments (individual payment or combined payments specifically for energy utility costs) in a three-month period must be equal to or exceed $80 or the total balance due on their energy bills, whichever is less. Payments made by other organizations or individuals on behalf of applicant households may substitute as self-payments. If no heating payment obligation existed during the applicable three-month period, the household is exempt from the self-payment requirement .
Households whose heating costs are included in the rent must show that the rent was paid during at least two of the prior three months.
Subject to prudent person criteria, staff may accept client self-declaration.
Households are exempt from the self-payment requirement if total household income for the month is at or below the current SSI maximum benefit for a household of one plus the current SSI disregard.