Bookmark & share:

E-mail this page E-mail a letter to the editor Reader Comments (below)

By BETH QUIMBY
MaineToday Media, Inc. 12/16/2007

The 40-year-old single mother has tacked blankets up against most of her windows to try to trap heat. She is also keeping a nervous eye on the 50 gallons left of emergency heating oil delivered last month.

"I use six to seven gallons a day," she said.

When that runs out she is not sure what she will do.

Social service agencies across the state are calling this winter of soaring home heating prices and harsh weather conditions a catastrophe for Mainers such as Handy who struggle to make ends meet under the best of conditions.

With the price of a gallon of home heating oil now at $3.18 a gallon, up 37 percent from a year ago, and kerosene prices up by 31 percent and propane by 26 percent, many low-income Mainers are flooding social service agencies with requests for help.

"People are absolutely panicking. What we are trying to do is calm people down," said Suzanne McCormick, executive director of the People's Regional Opportunity Program, the agency that administers fuel assistance in Cumberland County.

As lawmakers from Maine and other cold-weather states push for more federal money for fuel assistance this year, some Mainers are already running out of home heating fuel. Social services agencies say there are few resources for Mainers who cannot afford their heating bills. The problem, said Dale McCormick, director of MaineHousing, the state agency that distributes federal fuel assistance, is that while fuel prices have skyrocketed, federal fuel aid has not.

Maine's average federal fuel aid benefit of $579 is enough to last a family about a month this year, whereas the average benefit five years ago would cover half the heating season. Some 49,409 households in Maine received federal fuel assistance in 2006. This year officials expect to help 50,000 households by spring.

Catherine McConnell, who administers the federal fuel assistance program at Midcoast Maine Community Action, said her agency has already run out of its emergency fuel funds for December and will not be able to provide any more emergency fuel "provided to income-eligible people who have one-eighth of a tank or less" until next month.

"There is a crisis for some people already," said John Kerry, the director of the state Office of Energy Independence and Security, who heads a task force working on a plan to help Mainers cope with this winter's soaring home heating prices.

Amanda Fitzgerald, a single South Portland mother, was without any oil for a month before she asked for federal fuel assistance and received just over 100 gallons of oil on Dec. 7.

"My furnace is eating the oil. It will probably hold me three weeks," she said.

Tammy Wallace, 42, of Bath, spends hours on the phone trying to figure out how to keep her apartment warm for two teenage sons, who have a connective tissue disorder that is exacerbated by the cold. Last winter, she ran out of oil three times and turned to Midcoast Maine Community Action for help.

Now out of work for a couple of months because of a shoulder operation, Wallace asked for emergency help when her oil tank almost ran dry Nov. 8. But the $300 worth of oil she got then is about to run out. Wallace won't have any more cash coming in this month until the day after Christmas, when a Social Security benefit she receives as a widow is due to arrive.

She has resorted to heating her apartment with her electric oven and three space heaters, which is more expensive than oil in the long run.

"The only advantage is you can make a payment arrangement with (Central Maine Power)," Wallace said.

Power companies must get approval from the Public Utilities Commission to turn off a customer's electricity for nonpayment in winter, which isn't likely if the customer is making a good faith effort to pay their bill through a payment plan.

Wallace said relying on electricity for heat is the sort of strategy people who cannot afford to buy home heating oil quickly work out for themselves. Asking for help from others is not always easy.

"When you are trying to make it, then you run out of oil and it makes you feel even worse that you can't even provide for your children," she said.

WE HEAR VERY SAD STORIES

Social service officials say they are seeing high levels of stress in the people seeking help. They also report receiving more calls than ever before. Usually mental health issues top any other category of calls made to Maine's 211, the phone number for a health and human services referrals service. But this year, home heating assistance calls climbed to the top of the list, with 561 calls in November, compared with 89 such calls in November 2006. Last week alone, the service fielded 219 calls related to heating assistance.

The sad truth, said Karen Turgeon, 211 project director, is that there are few resources to refer callers to.

"It's scary. We hear very sad stories. We are stressed here," she said.

The major source of help is the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that is administered by MaineHousing at the county level through community action programs like People's Regional. The state agency has distributed more than $13 million to more than 23,000 low-income households so far, out of the $27 million the federal government allotted to Maine for fuel assistance this winter, according to the agency.

The federal aid is available for households that are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which means an annual income of $30,975 for a family of four or $15,315 for a single person. That rises to $17,357 for a single person over age 60, under age 2 or medically documented to be susceptible to hypothermia.

There are fundraising efforts under way in a few towns, such as Waterboro, collecting donations to help residents cope with rising energy costs, said Turgeon. Some churches provide help. Communities offer last resort help through their general assistance programs, but some are more generous than others.

The Keep ME Warm Fund, a state-run fund collecting fuel-assistance donations for low-income Mainers, also offers help. This year the goal for the fund is $1 million, according to Kerry, whose Office of Energy Independence and Security helps coordinate it. Whether that is reachable remains to be seen, given that the fund raised $50,000 last year.

MORE AID REQUESTED

In Washington County, social service agencies are trying to set up places where people can go during the day to keep warm. Timothy King, executive director of the Washington-Hancock Community Agency in Milbridge, said the idea is to provide a warm shelter so people can turn their thermostats down during the day to conserve their heating fuel.

His agency helps about 5,000 households a year with heat, 46 percent involving people 65 and older.

Some lawmakers, including Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud, are clamoring for more federal home heating aid. President Bush vetoed $2.4 billion for the program last month, because it was $480 million more than he requested. The issue is expected to be settled by the end of the year.

Maine state legislators are also looking for help from Washington rather than turning to state coffers. With a $95 million budget deficit looming, Gov. John Baldacci has no plans to ask the Legislature for emergency fuel assistance, said David Farmer, the governor's spokesman. But that could change if the situation grows desperate, he said.

"We are not going to let people freeze," Farmer said.

Bookmark and share this story: