60,000 LI households needed help paying for fuel

More than 60,000 Long Island households have gotten help so far this season to pay their fuel bills as heating oil prices soared to their highest winter levels in history and the economy continued struggling to shake the effects of the recession. Brutal weather in December and January also played a role.

The social services departments of Nassau and Suffolk counties say they expect a record number of people will have received help this season under the $5.1-billion federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is ongoing.

Another source of help, the private United Way of Long Island, says the need has been at least as great as last year but that the surge in oil prices exceeded an increase in donated funds so that the group was forced to disqualify people who received assistance under its program for the past two consecutive years.

"It went up quickly, and it went up astronomically," Mike Cooney, who oversees the program, said of the price of oil this year. It averaged $4.045 a gallon early last week -- 93 cents a gallon higher than a year earlier.

Through March 15, when the United Way program closed, it had disbursed a total of $607,000 to more than 1,400 homes, Cooney said.

One United Way client was DeNise McCarthy of Commack, a single mother in her 40s. She said she ran short of cash -- and heating oil -- starting in December as her business, DM Vision Designs Llc, which does interior decorating and home renovation management, withered during brutal weather.

"In the winter you don't do as much work as you do in the spring and summer," she said on Monday. This winter was particularly bad, she said.

She got two oil deliveries from the federal low-income program and a third from Project Warmth, she said.

Suffolk social services officials said 41,771 families received help under the low-income program from Nov. 1 through the end of February, a 2.4 percent increase from a year earlier. Commissioner Gregory Blass Sworn says there were more this month. "We don't see any leveling off in this or other programs," he said.

Nassau County's social services department reported an increase of 27 percent in families receiving low-income energy assistance, to 21,767 households from Jan. 1, through March 15.

Neither department could break down its clients by type of fuel used, but most Long Islanders heat with oil rather than gas, whose price dropped this winter by 8 percent, according to National Grid, despite an increase in the delivery charge.

The head of a trade group representing heating oil retailers estimates that more homeowners are further behind on payments for deliveries this year and by larger amounts. For the retailers "it's a double whammy," said Kevin Rooney of the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island.

Information on eligibility for the low-income program, and an application, is at otda.ny.gov/main/programs/heap. The New York State hotline for heating assistance is 800-342-3009. The Nassau County Department of Social Services number for heating help is 516-227-7605. In Suffolk it's 631-853-8820.

An eligible household can receive one regular benefit of up to $700 per season and one "emergency" benefit of as much as $700 under the low-income program.

Factors determining eligibility include family income -- which cannot exceed about $4,100 a month gross for a family of four -- the type of fuel used and whether there are elderly or disabled people or children in the household.