States feel pinch on federal home heating aid

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'A crisis'
In Massachusetts, where about 40 percent of homes use oil heat, officials said they were so concerned about rising prices they recently provided an additional $15 million in state funds for fuel assistance.

Former Rep. Joe Kennedy, who provides low-cost heating oil to the poor through his Boston-based nonprofit Citizens Energy Corp., estimated it will cost about $800 to fill a 250-gallon home heating tank this winter in New England. He worries the cost will be crippling to poor people and families struggling paycheck-to-paycheck.

“They don’t have $800 every two or three weeks to lay down just for the cost of keeping warm,” Kennedy said. “It’s a crisis for them.”

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Officials in Maine, one of the country’s coldest states, worry that poor, elderly and working families will be more vulnerable as winter wears on and they use up their fuel aid for the season.

Homes there use about 860 gallons a year, on average. At current prices of roughly $3.20 per gallon, state officials predict it will cost an average household about $2,750 for heating oil this winter.

That means Maine’s average fuel aid benefit of $579 will only last most families about a month. Five or six years ago, the average benefit would cover about half of the heating season, officials said.

About 37,000 Maine households have applied for fuel aid so far, but officials expect that figure to rise to somewhere between 48,000 and 51,000 before winter ends.

“We’ve never been so worried before,” said Dale McCormick, director of MaineHousing, a state agency that administers the federal assistance. “It’s very all-consuming.”