 A mother makes $2,000 a month as a home health aide. Her expenses outweigh her income by about $200, but she can usually make it work. Because she has a household of 3, she meets income guidelines for government heating assistance through the LIHEAP program and receives SNAP benefits. She’d be doing OK if it weren’t for the $1,300 rent and $500 car payment for a new vehicle people convinced her to buy because it’s “more reliable” than a used car. But, again, she makes it work. Except of course when her company cuts her hours, as it periodically does. And it just happens to coincide with her quarterly water bill that’s due. So she calls Lebanon County Christian Ministries for help. You can help. By becoming a monthly donor, you can ensure people get their utilities paid to prevent evictions, get connected to programs and referrals they qualify for, and even open the door to longer term help through our coaching program. 
Read the upLIFT Lite report. The scenario you just read is a composite of a common issue people face when applying for utility payment assistance at Lebanon County Christian Ministries. In fact, 37% of households in Lebanon County struggle to pay for basic needs, such as food, housing, utilities, transportation, and child care. Being employed does not always equal financial stability, and this is where LCCM steps in to fill that gap. 75% of the people requesting utility payment assistance through LCCM are women, a sizeable majority work, pay rent and about half have kids. We’ve lost count of the number of single mothers who make $2,000 or less a month – sometimes a lot less. More challenging still, many have compounding issues with work due to having children with special needs, specifically autism. READ THE FULL UPLIFT LITE REPORT BELOW
 upLIFT Lite guests were surveyed initially and three months later to determine if they were better off than they were when they first came to LCCM for assistance. Some of our guests are on a fixed income. Others work and receive SSI for a child in the household. Some are married or have partners.
For some it’s their first time seeking assistance. For others, they’ve sought assistance more than once. When people come to LCCM for help, they are often in crisis precisely because of this scenario we just laid out. LCCM has operated a utility assistance program for 15 years. In September of 2024, we rebranded it as upLIFT Lite and changed the way we conducted the program because we wanted to spend a bit more time with people to hear their story, encourage them to get onto programs they may qualify for and provide additional referrals they request. We wanted to find out: If LCCM met people in a deeper way in the gap between “employed” and “stable,” would it make a difference? So, we gathered data from the more than 600 people we’ve conducted intakes with so we can get a bird’s eye view about the true needs of the working class who make just enough to get by, but not enough to consistently cover basic expenses. We had a 20% response rate during a follow-up 3-month survey. Here’s what we found: At the initial intake session:
The thread that weaves through this promising data is connection. Our guest resource specialists work to ensure that qualifying households receive financial help in the short term; while also ensuring guests apply for programs they may qualify for to help in the long term. Food security rises because our guest resource specialists go the extra mile after the intake appointments to show guests to the Market on 7th and help them get registered so they can shop that day. The top referrals made to outside agencies are for rental assistance and employment services. 48% of those surveyed contacted a provider and 79% of participants received help. Perhaps one of the most interesting findings is how many upLIFT Lite guests are beginning to enroll in our longer-term upLIFT Coaching program, that pairs a person who is ready, willing, and able to work toward greater self-sufficiency with an in-house coach. LCCM enrolled 10 people from the upLIFT Lite program into the coaching program within the last year. These programs act as a bridge to help people work toward greater stability.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Lebanon County Christian MinistriesArchives
April 2026
Categories |
||||
Call Us:
Email Us:
RSS Feed