Demand rises across LI for help keeping warm

The struggling economy, higher energy prices and a harsh winter are driving more Long Islanders to seek help in paying for heat, according to the Island's county governments and some social service agencies.

In Nassau County, 19,315 households -- a 15 percent jump over last year -- received assistance under the Home Energy Assistance Program for low-income and elderly residents between Oct. 1 and Jan. 28, according to the county department of social services.

Suffolk County received program applications from 41,274 households for November and December. That's up nearly 12 percent compared with last year.

Michael Cooney, who oversees Project Warmth, an emergency heating assistance program for Nassau and Suffolk counties at the United Way, said about 300 applications have been received just in the past couple weeks -- nearly twice as many as normal.

"We've been seeing an extraordinary number of requests," Cooney said. The demand hasn't been quite as high as last year, he noted, when "we were in the heart of the recession" and the program ran out of money two months early.

"We're starting to worry about how long the rest of our funds will last now that the weather is really frigid and the price of oil and gas is up," he said.

Jan Jamroz, who oversees emergency relief funds for Catholic Charities, including an Islandwide program providing aid with utility bills, said that since September, the program has given 158 percent more in assistance than the same period a year ago.

Pamela Clark, who runs an emergency heating assistance program for the elderly in Nassau, said the pace of oil deliveries so far this year "is about twice what it was last year." Between April and March 2010, the program made 154 emergency deliveries.

The Nassau Department of Senior Citizen Affairs recently increased its funding "because so many people were having a hard time," she said.

Scott Scalise, controller of Tragar Oil in Wantagh, said he's seen a "dramatic increase" in the need. "The number has really quadrupled," he said of requests this year. "There's such a demand that people can't get through on the phone."