Traverna Douglas and her two young sons depend on the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to keep their subsidized townhome warm through Minnesota’s winters. But the ongoing government shutdown has funding for the program that helps 5.9 million households across the country on indefinite hold.

“For me, it's the natural gas and the electricity. Most people are like, oh, you live in a townhouse. It's really easy. I live on the end. So my heat is usually the highest out of all of us,” said Douglas, who also serves as a community representative for the local agency that administers LIHEAP application.

The anticipated delay comes as a majority of households served by the federally funded heating and cooling assistance program face the prospect of also losing federal food benefits. Money is running out for other safety net programs as well and energy prices are soaring.

“For families that live on the margin, you know, close to a third of the US population lives on the margin. These are the things that keep them from falling off the cliff,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state directors of the program. Commonly called LIHEAP, it serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and federally recognized tribes.

LIHEAP, created in 1981, assists families in covering utility bills or the cost of paying for fuels delivered to homes, such as home heating oil. It has received bipartisan congressional support for decades.

The states, which manage the program, receive an allotment of federal funds each year based on a formula that largely takes into account state weather patterns, energy costs, and low-income population data.

While President Donald Trump proposed zero funding for the program in his budget, it was anticipated Congress would fund LIHEAP for the new fiscal year that began Oct. 1. But since Congress has not yet passed a full fiscal year 2026 spending bill, states have not received their new allocations yet.

Some states, including Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Minnesota, have announced their LIHEAP programs are being delayed by the government shutdown.

Minnesota’s energy assistance program is still processing applications but the state’s Department of Commerce said federal LIHEAP funds will likely be delayed by a month. The agency doesn’t plan to pay recipients’ heating bills until the shutdown ends.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the assistance program, blamed the federal shutdown and the delay in LIHEAP payments on congressional Democrats, saying the Trump administration is committed to reopening the government.

Wolfe predicts there could be delays into January, noting there are questions over who will approve states' program plans and how the money will be released when it becomes available.

Delays in food and energy assistance are hitting at a time when low-income families are already being squeezed by inflation and trade uncertainty. Douglas, who runs her own costuming business, says tariffs and the rise of AI have already cut into her budget.

Douglas said she’s already working to set up payment plans with her utility vendors– a state-mandated protection during winter to prevent disconnects. But the roughly 9% of LIHEAP recipients who rely on deliverable fuels such as heating oil, kerosene, propane and wood pellets, typically don’t have such options.

And Douglas worries for renters like herself that could face eviction over disconnects should they miss an agreed-on payment.

“Everything keeps going up. Nothing is getting cheaper or just being stable for a while. There hasn't been stability in like five years. What are we doing?” she said.