By Greg Harman
San Antonians are hurting. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, our already struggling economy has cratered, leaving tens of thousands in desperate situations. Food insecurity has strained local systems including the San Antonio Food Bank. Some economists are expecting we will hit 26 percent unemployment this summer—with severe ramifications for future suicide rates. Work-wise, the hardest hit have been those already struggling service industry workers, most lacking basic job protections and paid sick time. Meanwhile, the virus has claimed a disproportionate number of elders, nursing home residents, and African-Americans.
The gathering eviction crisis, already well underway before the arrival of Covid-19, is getting ready to go into overdrive. Though delayed since April, local courts who extended the state's stay on evictions are preparing to start hearing cases on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. While City Council scrambles to deliver rental and bill assistance to those most in need, including directing federal resources through the CARES Act, local landlords aren't feeling the same urgency. A recent City Council meeting revealed that while roughly 7,000 applications have come in from residents seeking help, a mere 300 applications have been submitted by landlords interested in participating in a rent reduction program to help keep renters in place.
After Council rejected a call for a 60-day extension on the eviction moratorium, homeless advocates began rushing to convert church parking lots into campsites for the newly dispossessed. And while housing, employment, and food security have anchored the crisis conversation, utility bills and the negative outflow of our coal-reliant utility are a big part of the debt being borne by local families.
So far, City-owned CPS Energy has been celebrated for its response, including temporarily eliminating employee bonuses, pausing disconnections, and forgiving late fees (as long as residents keep up with payment agreements)—all typical responses among City-owned utilities nationwide. While elected leaders have acknowledged the longstanding structural inequities that made San Antonio so vulnerable to this particular crisis—and pledged to rectify them as we move into recovery mode—we have yet to have an honest conversation about CPS Energy.
Next week, as evictions get back underway, the Sierra Club will release an important new report commissioned from Optimal Energy on the potential of energy efficiency and related efforts to create more accountable governance, equitable rate restructuring, healthier air and a more stable climate, as well as direct investment in people's homes and businesses, improving lives and saving people money.
The report compares three city-owned utilities—Los Angeles, Austin, and San Antonio—presenting what we believe would be critical improvements for our city.
Among those recommendations include:
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Commit to 940 megawatts of energy savings over the next 10 years, several hundred megawatts more than initially proposed by the utility—and well beyond the savings achieved over the last decade.
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Expand home and commercial weatherization programs that improve the air quality and reduce the financial pressure on working families;
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Support for the expansion of community solar programs “that are available and accessible to those with limited-incomes”;
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Call for a new style of governance that makes the utility more accountable to the residents of our city—by creating a City Committee with direct City Council oversight to help direct utility operations.
Bills are coming due. Mass evictions are inevitable. And as the return of 90-degree days reminds us, summer is coming on. We know this summer will be hotter than normal (again)—the “new normal,” as the media can't resist tagging global warming. But what are we to make of Gold-Williams's pause on disconnects? There's been no promises made that the policy will hold. And while it's been said in recent online town halls the utility has a practice of avoiding cutoffs in the hottest and coldest times of the year, a review of the utility's own records shows otherwise.
In 2011, a season of fire and extreme drought in Texas, billed as the hottest summer in US history, CPS cut power to 48 homes between June and August, according to records secured by a Sierra Club Public Information Request. The practice has continued In more recent years. Last year, the utility cut off 14 homes during these three months. In 2018, the number was 92. In 2017, 14. In 2016, 53.
Let's be clear. These proposals are offered in the same spirit as calls for utility and rent forgiveness. They are about public health. They are about good economics. And they are about transparent, democratic governance. Just as San Antonians continue to demand and deserve paid sick time for all and the right to housing security, we deserve a utility striving for 100 percent clean energy to slow the onset of extreme weather, aggressive efficiency measures to take the weight off of our working families, and more accountability and democracy. There is no other time more critical for this conversation than the present.
Take part in the upcoming city-wide utility justice conversation at our online Town Hall on Tuesday June 2 at 6 PM.