This article is particularly relevant to investigations on energy vulnerability, but also particularly relevant to predictions of compounded vulnerabilities made by the research group before the first round of interviews. For example, one of the people interviewed said she was forced to shut her daughters' phone bills to pay for electricity, gas, and water. The only working phones in the family are hers and her son's, who helps pay for bills. The article also touches upon the higher struggles faced by immigrant families, as particularly situated in the COVID-19 pandemic. Much in similar ways to the predictions made by the members of this research group, the article mentions experts fear the precarious conditions worsened by the pandemic experienced by families will increase and will be felt by many others, making coping with expenses even worse in the summer. Overall, data presented in this article calls for significant structural reshaping of assistance policies. The extent to which the foregoing will be achieved is dubious, but one may be hopeful.
Maddie Kornfeld, "A Pandemic and Surging Summer Heat Leave Thousands Struggling to Pay Utility Bills", contributed by Briana Leone, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 27 July 2020, accessed 25 April 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/pandemic-and-surging-summer-heat-leave-thousands-struggling-pay-utility-bills
Critical Commentary
This article is particularly relevant to investigations on energy vulnerability, but also particularly relevant to predictions of compounded vulnerabilities made by the research group before the first round of interviews. For example, one of the people interviewed said she was forced to shut her daughters' phone bills to pay for electricity, gas, and water. The only working phones in the family are hers and her son's, who helps pay for bills. The article also touches upon the higher struggles faced by immigrant families, as particularly situated in the COVID-19 pandemic. Much in similar ways to the predictions made by the members of this research group, the article mentions experts fear the precarious conditions worsened by the pandemic experienced by families will increase and will be felt by many others, making coping with expenses even worse in the summer. Overall, data presented in this article calls for significant structural reshaping of assistance policies. The extent to which the foregoing will be achieved is dubious, but one may be hopeful.