Mainers will get less heating aid this winter

By Lori Valigra, Bangor Daily News Staff

Nothing seemed unusual or urgent about the phone call requesting heating oil assistance, until just before an Aroostook County Action Program staff member hung up with the senior caller.

“She said, ‘Oh it will be so nice to have fuel in our tank. We haven’t had any since last June,’” said Jason Parent, executive director of the Aroostook program.

The call took place at the beginning of October, when a cold snap drove overnight temperatures near freezing.

“So we remain very concerned about how people are going to get through this season without some additional efforts,” he said.

Low-income Mainers will get about half the amount of fuel assistance this year than last, when federal pandemic subsidies fattened the money available to them. At the same time, heating fuel prices have risen in the double digits since last year, and inflation is driving up prices for many consumer goods, from groceries to gas for cars. 

“Every one of us is subject to the inflation that is going on,” said Daniel Brennan, director of MaineHousing. “The money won’t go nearly as far as it did last year.”

Average heating oil prices rose more than 80 percent to $5.71 per gallon on Nov. 7 compared with the previous year, according to the Governor’s Energy Office. Kerosene was up 91 percent to $7.07 per gallon, propane up 2 percent to $3.33 per gallon and firewood up 27 percent to $350 per cord.

Those prices are awakening Mainers to the inevitability of a cold winter, and even those who have been hesitant or too embarrassed to ask for help are doing so this year.

The Aroostook County Action Program, which administers the federal low-income home energy assistance program, already has received more than triple the number of applications this year compared with last, at some 4,554, said Parent. 

That’s not all due to heating sticker shock. His group worked with MaineHousing to effectively double the staff taking applications and started a month earlier in mid-July. That accelerated the process to get funds to fuel companies that in turn fill the tanks of their needy clients.

In a separate move, MaineHousing also advanced the release date by one month for $11 million in heating assistance money by temporarily borrowing from another program. It was able to help close to 11,000 eligible households, about 7,200 of them priority applications from people aged 65 or older.

The federal program has a lengthy application and can take months to sign up for and be approved. The advance allowed Mainers to get fuel assistance even before the federal money for this season was granted a couple weeks ago. The state will receive $42.5 million through the Department of Health and Human Services’ low-income home energy assistance program this year, up $6.5 million from last year.

That’s good news for the program, but it still leaves Mainers short. And those who signed up late will have a gap before they get their fuel. It’s a gap Lesa Lemar, officer manager at Morningstar Stone and Tile in Topsham, hopes to help close.

Lemar founded the Morningstar Home Heating Relief Fund two years ago in honor of her father, Jack Maier. Colleagues from the tile company, customers and others contribute to the fund, which is managed by the Maine Community Action Program and does not require an application.

“My dad was in his 80s and had a hard time getting heating oil,” Lemar said. “We got the first heating assistance just before he died in 2020.”

Lemar said her father’s generation often hesitated to ask for help, and it took a while for her to convince him it was fine to do so. The federal application was so involved she had to fill it out. She came up with the idea for her own organization to avoid the red tape.

Last year her fund donated an average of $750 each to 21 families for fuel. It raised $17,000 last year, and already is ahead of fundraising this year, although inflation and high prices mean the money is stretched thinner and needed more than ever, she said.

That money and the funds from the federal program aren’t supposed to cover the couple thousand dollars or more that it costs for heat during the average Maine winter. Mainers can apply to both programs. Last year Mainers in the federal program received $800 in fuel assistance for the season, plus the same amount in pandemic assistance, giving them $1,600 for the season. This year they will get an average of $900.

The Morningstar money can help fill the gap of not having the pandemic boost this year, Megan Hannan, executive director of the Maine Community Action Program, said. She also helps decide who gets the Morningstar funds.

Hannan expects Maine’s Legislature to step up and offer additional fuel relief in the coming session, including to households that are not currently eligible. The urgency of spiraling fuel oil prices and a potential crisis this winter are on the minds of lawmakers and were key points of debate in the recent gubernatorial race.

“The bottom line is that we need to do everything we can to help hard-working families and older Mainers stay warm this winter,” said Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash. “We need to not only make sure that the funds are available to support heating assistance but also eliminate the red tape that prevents folks from getting the resources they need as soon as possible. We must pull every lever available to us.”

Parent said the current economic crisis is exacerbating worries about heating fuel this winter because it is so widespread.

“We’re seeing individuals whose pride in the past prevented them from coming or who really thought they could get by,” Parent said. “But right now that’s just become an impossibility for altogether too many.”