Advocates Protest Utility Injustice, ‘Catastrophic’ Effects of Rate Increases
January 17, 2025
PROVIDENCE — The temperature had already dropped below freezing Tuesday night by the time the protesters had gathered in the Bell Room of the State House.
State officials and notables were seated upstairs, in the House chamber, readying for Gov. Dan McKee’s State of the State speech. Barred from entering the rotunda as originally planned, housing and utility justice advocates, unhoused residents and immigrants shared their experiences of being down and out in Rhode Island with all who came to listen.
In his speech, the governor said his administration had flipped the script on old, negative narratives on Rhode Island, touting instead its credentials as a success story. But some state residents — feeling the bite of inflation, rising housing and energy costs — were literally and figuratively left out in the cold.
Central Falls resident David Paz told the crowd, in translated Spanish, he worked extra hours at his job to put food on the table and pay his bills. At times, said Paz, he didn’t go home in order to avoid running up the heating bill during winter. The cost of heating his home has risen sharply in recent years.
“Paying for the high cost of [natural] gas and electricity is not easy,” said Paz, “… to be barely able to afford rent and other basic necessities but not be able to go home because I couldn’t turn on my heat.”
Susan Kelly, a self-described “invisible old person,” said she relied mostly on her Social Security benefit, around $2,000 a month, to make ends meet. Every increase in rent, utilities, and other basic necessities would push her closer and closer to economic precarity and homelessness, something which Kelly said happens to dozens of people every day in Rhode Island.
“Every time there is a price increase, I am that much closer to losing the security of a roof over my head,” said Kelly.
This year will mark the fourth straight winter of sky-high energy prices for all state residents. Prior to the pandemic, prices remained low and stable. In 2017, a typical state resident using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity a month would pay, after all other calculated charges, around $100 a month on their winter electric bill.
Thanks to outside economic forces, including the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, energy prices sharply increased in 2022. Since then, the average homeowner using the same amount of electricity has paid somewhere around $150 per month for their electric bill.
Residents who use natural gas for cooking and heating their homes in winter got a double whammy. The rate for natural gas rose 23.4% on Oct. 1, 2024, an average monthly increase of $41.72 per year. The winter season brings a moratorium on utility shutoffs, but it still does not abolish any money owed to Rhode Island Energy, the state’s main utility company.
At the end of the day, it’s the Rhode Islanders with the least that feel the brunt of energy hikes. There has been little movement on the part of state officials in the last few years to help the state’s working poor with the price spikes. State officials have allotted money for bill credits, and extra funds for heating assistance, but they have been Band Aids on a serious problem.
It’s these ever-growing crises, compounded with state officials’ inaction on homelessness over the past few winters, that drove activists from Black Lives Matter Rhode Island PAC, the George Wiley Center, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation to hold the protest. The State of the State is typically the marquee event for a governor because it’s the most appropriate occasion to announce big new changes or policy proposals, especially if re-election is looming.
Originally scheduled to take place under the Rotunda, the protest was shuffled around the Statehouse before being exiled to the Bell Room. When advocates gathered at 5:30 p.m., they found Capitol Police had already roped off the Rotunda, with signs claiming the state Department of Administration had “reserved” the space until 10 p.m.
Protesters zeroed in on a handful of solutions for policymakers to implement. Chief among them is opening the Echo Village pallet shelter, a 45-unit temporary, prefab housing site that has been built and ready for occupation since last year, but has not been opened to the state’s unhoused population.
Another solution is legislation. Utility justice advocates from the George Wiley Center have long asked policymakers to adopt a Percentage Income Payment Plan for low-income residents. Instead of paying a flat charge for every watt of electricity ratepayers use, a PIPP program would enable low-income residents to use only a small portion of their income to pay for utilities, avoiding both debt to the utility company and potential shutoffs.
Advocates also want state officials to strengthen protections for seriously ill and/or disabled residents, who can avoid utility service shutoffs for an extended period of time. Ellen Wyatt, a retired Providence school teacher and a volunteer with the George Wiley Center, described utility shutoffs for residents with serious illnesses as a “catastrophe.”
“This body has held up these policies for far too long,” said Wyatt. “These should be top priorities for the legislature this year.”
I don’t understand the amount of gas and electricity that I use is compounded by the service fees My service fees are almost as much as the actual usage that I use in the home. At some point in time my service fees are going to be more than what I actually use and this is not fair I do not mind paying for what I use, and I know there are fees associated with providing me service but they don’t even walk to your meter and read it anymore they drive by and if that’s more expensive than having someone actually come to your meter and read it every month they should go back to the old way. I just know I can’t keep encouraging all of these fees.
Keep runningthings for the rich, keep running the whole state into the ground. Shame on the governor and legislature
It’s called inflation and destructive energy regulation – with the last federal government administration being the root cause of the price misery. Rhode Islanders should vote differently, or accept the consequences.