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Clevelanders on city water and city power, don’t fret: Your utilities will stay on during the next month as the federal government shutdown (38 days and counting) continues.
That’s what Mayor Justin Bibb announced this week, with the order going into effect Friday morning.
From today until December 6, no customer of Cleveland Public Power and Cleveland Water will have service shut off if they’re late on a payment or if they don’t pay altogether.
In a news release this week, Bibb said the decision to keep lights and faucets on was out of sympathy for the less fortunate, including the Clevelanders among the 190,000 Cuyahoga County residents dealing with the ongoing SNAP benefits crisis.
“No one should have to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table,” Bibb said in a statement. “This moratorium is about giving our residents breathing room, stability, and dignity while Washington works to resolve this crisis.”
SNAP recipients may have some hope though by Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP to 42 million Americans in full, arguing that they “failed to consider the harms” curtailing those payments might have.
Trump said earlier this week that he okayed the use of $5 billion in contingency funds—emergency money that could easily go to SNAP—but refused to tap into a larger pool of money.
He and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which admisters SNAP payments, said that receipients would receive “partial” payments, or about 65 percent of what’s typically loaded on their EBT cards every month.
Utilities payments vary wildly based on family size, season and location, with water and electricity running anywhere from $50 to $150 a month in most cases. Costs that may have spiked last year, Signal reported.
“In moments like these, local government must step up,” Bibb said. “We are doing everything we can to make sure families stay connected to water and power—the basic services every person deserves.”
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Mark Oprea
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