Vermont

Soaring home heating prices have many Vermonters feeling the pinch

Published

2 years ago

December 29, 2022

Soaring home heating prices have many Vermonters feeling the pinch

BARRE, Vt. (WCAX) – Many Vermonters are combating house heating prices. Hovering gasoline costs are hitting everybody’s pockets, nevertheless it’s particularly difficult for lower-income residents who don’t qualify for heating help.

Matthew Lavoy lives in a bunch house in Barre. His hire lately went up $100, partially, due to elevated house heating costs.

“It might not seem to be a lot to lots of people, however to me, $100 is a 3rd of my weekly earnings,” Lavoy stated.

The warfare in Ukraine, world provide chain points and inflation have despatched house heating costs hovering.

In some areas of Vermont, house heating oil has spiked to round $5 a gallon.

That’s only one strain on households.

“Provide chain points, costs of all the pieces, folks’s meals, even with the Three Squares advantages. They’re right here for the meals shelf in addition to the vitality,” stated Sue Rossi, the vitality and outreach supervisor at Capstone Group Motion.

The state supplies help via the Low-Revenue House Vitality Help Program or LIHEAP. This fall, Vermont’s congressional delegation secured $27 million for this system, and state lawmakers lately signed off on one other $5 million in assist to get Vermonters via the winter. However that gasoline help relies on federal poverty ranges, and in Vermont, the cutoff is low.

“There are a variety of new people who find themselves coming via our doorways which have by no means requested for assist as a result of they’re over earnings for the gasoline help via the state,” Rossi stated.

Rossi says in case you work 40 hours every week and make greater than $12.15 an hour, you aren’t eligible.

Group motion businesses do present some reduction for many who don’t qualify for LIHEAP.

Rossi additionally says she is helping extra retired seniors who’re working jobs to remain forward of inflation.

“It’s a cycle the place they aren’t in a position to reside on what Social Safety has supplied after which they’re out of different packages as a result of they’re making an excessive amount of. This yr, that’s been a standard theme,” Rossi stated.

Locals I spoke with in Barre say some native gasoline firms are additionally making an attempt to work with Vermonters by filling their tank now and letting them pay later this yr when house heating gained’t be as massive of a priority.

Source link

Related Topics:assistance Costs Economy Featured fuel heating Home inflation LIHEAP news prices Rising soaring vermont WCAX

Click to comment

Vermont

Vermont H.S. sports scores for Wednesday, Dec. 18: See how your favorite team fared

Published

4 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

Vermont H.S. sports scores for Wednesday, Dec. 18: See how your favorite team fared

Nylah Mitchell’s 20 points carry Burlington girls basketball to win

Nylah Mitchell talks about her dominant 20-point outing where she attacked in the paint and the outlook for Burlington this season.

The 2024-2025 Vermont high school winter season has begun. See below for scores, schedules and game details (statistical leaders, game notes) from basketball, hockey, gymnastics, wrestling, Nordic/Alpine skiing and other winter sports.

TO REPORT SCORES

Coaches or team representatives are asked to report results ASAP after games by emailing sports@burlingtonfreepress.com. Please submit with a name/contact number.

►Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter:@aabrami5.

►Contact Judith Altneu at jaltneu@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.

WEDNESDAY’S H.S. GAMES

Girls basketball

Games at 7 p.m. unless noted

Blue Mountain at Sharon, 6 p.m.

Colchester at Mount Mansfield

Boys basketball

Games at 7 p.m. unless noted

Lamoille at Williamstown, 5:30 p.m.

Lake Region at Lyndon, 6:30 p.m.

Stowe at Richford

Peoples at Hazen

North Country at U-32

White River Valley at Randolph

St. Johnsbury at Colchester

Montpelier at Rice

Thetford at Oxbow

Boys hockey

Brattleboro at Rutland, 4 p.m.

Colchester at Rice, 5:20 p.m.

Harwood at Hartford, 5:45 p.m.

Missisquoi at North Country (Jay Peak), 6 p.m.

Burr and Burton at Woodstock, 6:55 p.m.

Champlain Valley at Spaulding, 7:15 p.m.

Milton at Stowe, 7:15 p.m.

Middlebury at South Burlington, 7:40 p.m.

Girls hockey

Hartford at Spaulding, 5:15 p.m.

Kingdom Blades at Essex, 6 p.m.

Middlebury at Brattleboro, 7:15 p.m.

Dr. Butsch Tournament at Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center

Stowe at U-32, 4 p.m.

Burr and Burton vs. Missisquoi, 6 p.m.

Burlington/Colchester Tournament at Leddy Arena

Beekmantown, NY vs Rice, 5:30 p.m.

Franklin Academy, NY at Burlington/Colchester 7:40 p.m.

THURSDAY’S H.S. GAMES

Girls basketball

Games at 7 p.m. unless noted

Randolph at Williamstown, 6 p.m.

Stowe at Woodstock, 6 p.m.

Milton at Richford, 7 p.m.

South Burlington at Spaulding

Lyndon at Hazen

Montpelier at Harwood

North Country at BFA-St. Albans

Thetford at Northfield

Oxbow at Rivendell

Boys basketball

Games at 7 p.m. unless noted

BFA-St. Albans at Milton

Danville at Twinfield/Cabot

Mount Mansfield at Essex, 7:30 p.m.

Girls hockey

Burlington/Colchester Tournament at Leddy Arena

Franklin Academy, NY vs. Rice, 5:30 p.m.

Beekmantown, NY at Burlington/Colchester, 7:40 p.m.

(Subject to change)

Source link

Vermont

Opinion — Geoffrey Battista: Raze the cathedral

Published

12 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

Opinion — Geoffrey Battista: Raze the cathedral

Dear Editor,

I am brimming with giggles after having read Sally Giddings Smith’s recent commentary on the imminent demolition of Burlington’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. To compare that lifeless monstrosity to Notre Dame de Paris — for half the piece, for God’s sake — is a level of absurd that I could not beat out of Samuel Beckett.

Burlington’s cathedral had decades to turn downtown into an architectural mecca. Indeed, one would have hoped that the demolition of dozens of historic homes for an urban renewal project like the cathedral would generate an indisputable benefit to the downtown: busloads of tourists, shoppers and devotees. Mexico City’s Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not the sexiest structure, for example — concrete here, concrete there, on concrete grounds — but it rises to the challenge! Burlington? Not so much.

Let us not let a small cabal of historic preservation fundamentalists derail the demolition. Whatever takes the place of the cathedral, and I hope it is housing, will be worth far more to the city than whatever the status quo has provided.

by Opinion
December 16, 2024, 7:11 amDecember 13, 2024, 5:09 pm

And let us send the old apse ‘n nave to a farm up north where it can frolic with the architectural marvels of yesteryear: the original Penn Station, the Library of Alexandria and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Adieu, chère cathédrale! Bienvenue, nouveaux voisins!

Geoffrey Battista

Montpelier

Pieces contributed by readers and newsmakers. VTDigger strives to publish a variety of views from a broad range of Vermonters.
More by Opinion

Source link

Vermont

Vermont Won A Historic National Championship In Fittingly Dramatic Fashion | Defector

Published

19 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

Vermont Won A Historic National Championship In Fittingly Dramatic Fashion | Defector

Even before kickoff, the final of the NCAA men’s soccer championship was special as a meeting between two underdogs. Marshall, which won its first title in the 2020 season as an unseeded team, was the 13th seed this year and reached the final by defeating No. 1 Ohio State. Meanwhile, unseeded Vermont beat two-seed Pitt and three-seed Denver on its way to the title game. The Thundering Herd and Catamounts put together a real thriller Monday night, as Vermont won its first championship in program history on a sudden-death goal in overtime.

That goal is at the 7:56 mark of the highlight reel below, though the entire second half of the match was very dramatic. Marshall took a 1-0 lead in the 57th minute after Vermont keeper Niklas Herceg mishandled a tough cross right into the path of Tarik Pannholzer. Herceg kept his team in it with a beautiful save minutes later, and in the 81st minute, Marcell Papp took advantage of a poor clearance from Marshall keeper Aleksa Janjic to start and finish a one-two with a shot from just inside the box. You’re here for the winner, though. In overtime, centerback Zach Barrett intercepted a pass in the Vermont half and smacked a speculative longball for Maximilian Kissel. The forward shrugged off his defender, then dribbled around Janjic and scored.

This is the University of Vermont’s first national championship in a sport outside of skiing; when the school reached the final, it became the first team from the America East conference to do so. The Catamounts are unlikely winners, although this title follows strong runs in recent seasons: They lost in the quarterfinals in 2022 and in the third round last year. Scoring late is also somewhat of a trademark for Vermont, as they recorded 22 goals in the 76th minute or later this season. The Catamounts also became, by my unscientific reckoning, the team with the coolest-named mascot to win an NCAA title this year—an equally prestigious honor, no doubt.

Source link