{"id":28369,"date":"2013-06-07T08:31:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T13:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=28369"},"modified":"2013-06-07T16:02:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T21:02:46","slug":"with-a-broken-safety-net-abandoned-whats-next-for-low-income-texans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/06\/07\/with-a-broken-safety-net-abandoned-whats-next-for-low-income-texans\/","title":{"rendered":"With a Broken Safety Net Abandoned, What’s Next For Low Income Texans?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mose Buchele for StateImpact Texas<\/p>

State Rep. Sylvester Turner helped create the System Benefit Fund. He will now see the fund drawn down.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the start of the year, over $800 million sat unused in a state fund designed to help low income Texans, and state Rep. Sylvester Turner<\/a>, D-Houston, thought there was nothing he could do about it.<\/p>\n

“If you had asked me in January, did I envision these dollars going to the intended population? I would have said ‘No,'” Turner, a Houston attorney, says now. “I simply did not think that that legislature, with the leadership that was in place, would take those dollars and put them towards poor people.”<\/p>\n

He’s not kidding. I did ask him late last year, and that’s pretty much what he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, months later, the money is likely going where he did not think it would, into discounts to help poor Texans pay their electric bills. But the budget deal that freed\u00a0the money\u00a0up ensured that all assistance will disappear within a few years. That’s left some low income Texans, and their advocates, unsure whether to claim victory or defeat.<\/p>\n

‘Like An Addict’<\/h4>\n

Set up when Texas deregulated its electricity market, the System Benefit Fund collected fees from ratepayers in deregulated parts of the state to\u00a0give discounts to poorer people in those same areas.\u00a0But things never went according to plan. Year after year, lawmakers reduced or sometimes eliminated the discount. The Public Utility Commission of Texas<\/a> also reduced the number of people receiving the benefit.<\/p>\n

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