I go to bed at night and shiver myself to a comfortable state of warmth and only then can I fall asleep. But I have it good. I'm one of the lucky ones who can afford to keep my thermostat at an almost-comfortable 60 degrees.
Others this winter will shiver to death.
The heating bill for my small, three-bedroom apartment in the University Heights came to just over $163 last month, which was not a particularly frigid period. That's an increase of roughly $120 from the previous month.
Between my two roommates and I, it's a manageable cost, but an increase of that magnitude could be devastating for a single-income household.
Families with children, the elderly and the disabled are protected by law from having their heat turned off, but the rest could potentially be left on their own.
This winter is expected to be particularly tough for the homeless and poor, but there is no way of knowing exactly how tough.
Sen. Charles Schumer made a visit to Buffalo on Monday to speak about the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP). According to The Buffalo News, HEAP pays an average of 25 to 30 percent of the energy bills for senior citizens, the disabled and families with children younger than 5.
While this assistance from Schumer is great-he hopes to attain another $1 billion dollars for the program-it only aids people with homes.
All expected sources for the number of people who die in Buffalo from exposure to the elements do not have the information. The Buffalo Police, Erie County Health Department, WNY Homeless Coalition, Erie County Commission on Homelessness and UB Student Health Services all say they have no such statistics.
It would seem nobody is bothering to count.
Nationally, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 689 people die each year in the U.S. with hypothermia and exposure to extreme nature cold reported as the cause of death.
The London press fears deaths numbering in the thousands in what is expected to be a particularly cold winter. The U.K. as a whole estimates between 30,000-in the case of a mild winter-and 89,000 deaths due to the freeze.
This statistical gap between the number of deaths in the U.S. and the U.K. can only be explained as a result of differences in what are considered deaths resulting from low temperatures.
Hypothermia accounts only for deaths from a severe drop in body temperature, not any of the resulting diseases. In other words, a person who dies of pneumonia or influenza is not included in any statistics regarding death by exposure.
To truly understand the scope of the problem, U.S. and Buffalo health officials need to expand their definition of a death caused by severe cold beyond hypothermia cases.
Legally, National Fuel, which provides heat basically every home and apartment in Buffalo, cannot turn off heat for the elderly, disabled or families with children. As good as that is to hear, since those are the most susceptible groups, that still leaves a lot of people out in the cold.
Society has a different way of reacting to steadily growing death tolls than to those that occur all at once.
If 50 people died in an apartment building fire downtown, the public outpouring of support for families and the demand for better living conditions for the poor would be tremendous.
As it stands in Buffalo, the charity drives for the working poor and homeless who are likely to suffer from a cold winter amount to hat-and-mitten drives.
National Fuel sends, along with the monthly bill, a request for donation to a fund that helps the impoverished pay for their heating costs. Though this seems charitable, the company has a financial stake in asking for that money from their more affluent clients.
The Western New York public is not putting forth a unified effort to combat cold-weather illnesses and deaths. Increasing participation in existing drives and programs is the least we can do.
A more all-encompassing stance on the way the Buffalo winter affects its needful citizens is mandatory in order to truly provide the aid they deserve and require.
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
