There are two bills everyone talks about when they talk about the cost of living: rent and groceries. But at the kitchen tables of La Porte County, there’s a third bill sitting in the stack, and this year, it’s grown teeth.

Electricity. Heat in January. Air conditioning in July. The energy that makes a house livable has become, for thousands of our neighbors, the bill that decides whether the other bills get paid.

At Nest Community Shelter, we’ve written this year about how food costs and housing costs push working families toward the edge. Energy belongs in that same conversation, because an electric bill can’t be skipped the way a grocery trip can be stretched, and because falling behind on it starts a chain reaction that can end at our front door.

What Energy Costs Here Now

Northern Indiana households are feeling this more than most Americans, and the numbers from state and federal agencies tell the story plainly:

  • According to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission’s most recent Residential Bill Survey, the average residential electric bill in our region ranked highest among all utilities under the Commission’s jurisdiction, at about $233 per 1,000 kilowatt-hours as of mid-2025.
  •  U.S. Energy Information Administration data reported by WNDU shows our area’s average residential electricity price was the highest in Indiana in 2024, and that the typical residential bill has risen more than 90% over the past decade, the largest increase of any utility in the state. By one EIA analysis cited by State Representative Jim Pressel this February, residential rates here rank among the very highest of any electric utility in the nation.
  •  The most recent rate adjustment, approved by state regulators in June 2025, is adding about $23 a month, roughly 17%, to the average residential electric bill as it phased in through early 2026. That figure was reduced from the original request through the regulatory settlement process, but for a household already stretched thin, it still means finding another $270 a year.

And this isn’t only a northern Indiana story. A national study by the energy policy group PowerLines found that utility costs have become the fastest-growing driver of inflation in America, rising faster than groceries, vehicles, or medicine, with rates up roughly 40% nationally over five years. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association reports that home heating costs rose 9.2% nationwide this past winter, with households that heat with electricity seeing a 12.2% increase.

The reasons are complicated: aging infrastructure, grid investments, a nationwide energy transition, and reasonable people debate them. What isn’t debatable is what the bills do to a tight budget.

The Energy Burden: Why the Same Bill Hits Harder Downstairs

Economists measure this with a concept called “energy burden,”  the share of household income that goes to keeping the power on. And it reveals why energy costs are a poverty issue, not just a pocketbook issue:

  •  According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, low-income households spend an average of 8.6% of their income on energy, nearly three times the 3% burden carried by other families.
  • About 21.5 million U.S. households, or roughly 1 in 6, are currently behind on their energy bills, with total utility debt around $21 billion, the highest level in years.
  • Remember the ALICE math from our last post: 38% of Indiana households already can’t cover basic costs. For a family like that, a $23-a-month increase isn’t an annoyance. It’s the electric bill versus the water bill. It’s the space heater versus the school shoes.

How an Electric Bill Becomes a Housing Crisis

Here’s what we see at Nest, and why we are writing about kilowatt-hours:

  • A shutoff can make a home unlivable even when the rent is paid. A house without heat in our community in January isn’t a home, and those facing disconnection often leave, double up with relatives, or end up in shelter even though they never missed a rent payment. Indiana’s winter disconnection moratorium protects customers from December 1 through March 15, but only those who have qualified for energy assistance.
  • Utility debt follows you to the next apartment. An unpaid balance must typically be settled, often with an additional deposit, before service can be connected at a new address. For a guest trying to exit homelessness, that’s another brick in the cash wall we wrote about last time: first month, last month, security deposit, and now an old utility balance plus a new utility deposit.
  • The impossible choices compound. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s research on household hardship this year found families cutting meals as costs rose across the board. Energy sits in that same squeeze: national surveys consistently find families skipping food, medicine, or rent payments to keep the lights on, a trade-off researchers call “heat or eat.”

Help Exists and Reaching for It Early Matters

The most important thing we can tell any neighbor reading this: do not wait for a disconnection notice to act. Help is real, but it moves on deadlines.

  • Our utility providers offer payment plans, budget billing, and assistance programs that spread costs evenly across the year and connect struggling customers with support. Options are listed on your bill and utility websites and are worth a phone call the moment a bill starts to slip.
  • Township trustee offices across La Porte County provide emergency utility assistance, and community action agencies administer both energy assistance and free weatherization upgrades that permanently lower bills.

The Bigger Picture

Energy costs are now part of the same story as rent and groceries: the basics are outrunning the paychecks. We don’t write this to point fingers; the forces driving energy costs are national, complicated, and bigger than any one company or community. We write it because the guests in our shelter, and the thousands more one bad month from needing us, are living at the intersection of all three bills at once.

  • Donate to help Nest meet neighbors at that intersection, with shelter, financial planning, and case management that help guests find every dollar of help they qualify for.
  • Check on your neighbors during the summer heat, especially seniors on fixed incomes, who face brutal cooling costs without summer shutoff protections.

Because a home you can’t afford to heat or cool isn’t a home. In La Porte County, keeping our neighbors housed now means helping them keep the lights on, too.

 

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