Requests rising for winter heating help

It’s a cold, hard reality of the recession: more and more people say they need financial help to keep their homes warm this winter.

In the past two weeks, more than 6,000 people in the Lynchburg area have asked for winter heating fuel assistance. Local social services officials expect that when they stop taking applications Nov. 13, there will be many more people seeking help than there were last year.

“There are a lot of people that are in need,” said Glenn Sullivan, director of Amherst County Social Services. “We have so many people coming (for help) that have never been here before.”

Amherst County already has collected almost as many requests for help as it collected in all of last year, which had a longer application period than this year does.

The story is the same in every other jurisdiction in Central Virginia: Many people who have lost their jobs are asking for help.

“The economic indicator that drives the demand for financial assistance programs … is unemployment,” said Rick Verilla, director of Campbell County Social Services. “Whenever we see these other recovery indicators — the stock market going up, prices stabilizing … that doesn’t affect us a whole lot.”

“Until the rate of unemployment decreases, we’re going to have an increasing demand on our financial assistance services,” Verilla said.

“It’s with a great deal of confidence that I tell you that we will have a whole lot more applications … this year than we did last year.”

The heating fuel program of the Virginia Department of Social Services uses federal dollars to help low-income households pay for the fuel that heats their homes. Local social service agencies collect and approve applications.

The amount of help people receive changes every year, depending on how much money is available and how many people apply. Last year the average recipient had $550 of assistance. The year before, the state received less federal money for the program and the average benefit was about $260.

The number of people asking for help goes up a little every year, but the state expects a sharp increase this year because of the economy, said Andrea Gregg, director of the state’s energy assistance programs.

Two years ago, 6,659 people in the Lynchburg region applied for heating fuel assistance. In 2008, there were 7,842 applicants, an increase of 17.8 percent.

As of Tuesday, Lynchburg-area social services organizations had collected about 6,031 applications. That is 77 percent of the total applications received in all of last year.

Local social services departments will accept applications until Nov. 13. Local administrators process the applications to determine who is eligible.

To qualify for the program, applicants must be responsible for paying their own heating fuel bill. They must also have a monthly gross income within the program’s requirements.

A household of one person must make less than $1,174 per month. A household of four must make less than $2,389, said Lisa Hall, supervisor of energy assistance programs in Lynchburg.

Earning just one dollar more disqualifies an applicant, she said.

“That doesn’t mean people don’t need it. That just means this is where the cutoff is,” said Leighton Langford, social services director in Bedford County.

He said that other organizations, such as churches and civic clubs, have programs that help people who might not qualify for state assistance.

After an applicant is approved for the program, the state Department of Social Services decides how much to give each applicant. That decision is based in part on the number of people in the home and the type of heating fuel used, Gregg said.

The money is distributed to the vendors, who supply heating fuel, and applied to the accounts of people approved for the program.

Gregg said it is not clear how much money the state will receive from the federal government this year for the fuel assistance program. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has approved $25 million for Virginia, but that is only the first installment and a final amount will be approved later, she said.

Last year, the state received $118 million for the program, compared to about $35 million to $45 million in years before, Gregg said.