Hundreds of Alexandria utility customers apply for financial aid on first day

ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) - An estimated hundreds of Alexandria utility customers did not waste time applying for financial aid to help try and pay off their high utility bill debt.

Applications opened up on Monday, March 6, for residents to find out if they qualified for any assistance. Within a few hours, hundreds of applications had already been submitted.

Nearly all utility customers in the city reported receiving unpayable utility bills during the second half of 2022 after the city claimed that a cyber attack caused the billing cycles to be delayed between 45 and 60 days. For months, low-to-moderate income utility customers had high bills piled on top of one another with no set plan in place to pay them off.

In December, the new administration under Mayor Jacques Roy announced a $3.5 million relief fund as part of Project RESTOR that upwards of 3,500 residents could apply for to be used to potentially clear some of that debt.

For those who are eligible, click here to see a chart of the potential maximum grant amount that can be received depending on the number of people living in one household and the household’s annual income.

Applications are open until Friday, March 10. Alexandria families are able to apply both online and in person.

To access the online application, click here.

For those wanting to apply or have questions answered in person, two pop-up locations will be set up on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday of this week at the Bolton Avenue Community Center and Broadway Resource Center. Utility customers can visit the locations between 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and then again from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The City told News Channel 5 that the applicants should expect to wait about two weeks before hearing back on the status of their application.

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