Northern Maine saw its first snowfall of the season Tuesday night. Nighttime temperatures have barely dipped below freezing and most Mainers have yet to turn on their heat, but the threat of winter looms.
As the Iran war and other global conflicts have skyrocketed the price of oil, Maine will uniquely feel the burden once the weather turns cold. It is the most dependent state in the U.S. on home heating oil, which more than 57% of households use as a fuel source.
The average price of heating oil is roughly 80% higher than this time last year, lingering around a record high of $6 per gallon for the last month. That means a standard 275-gallon tank will cost upwards of $740 more to fill, multiplied by several fillups over the course of a winter.
In Aroostook County, Maine’s coldest and among its poorest counties, that economic pain will be its most pronounced. Nearly 70% of households in The County use heating oil, further squeezing a population already dealing with the rising cost of groceries, electricity and other expenses fueling the affordability crisis.
And the federal programs meant to help alleviate the burden are overwhelmed.
“Last year was really challenging, but this year, with the price of oil hovering at about $6 a gallon, it’s just been an incredible amount of panic on the part of a lot of folks who just don’t know how they’re going to be able to heat their home this winter,” said Jason Parent, the CEO of Avec Community Action.
Avec, which recently rebranded from the Aroostook County Action Program, administers heating assistance programs in Aroostook, Washington and Hancock counties. The organization has seen a surge in applications for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in the years following the pandemic.
In Aroostook County alone, Avec expects to receive more than 7,600 applications for this heating season, 16% higher than last year and accounting for more than a quarter of all households in The County.
“I’ve been in community action for 18 years and I have never seen the need as horrible as it is so early on in the season,” Avec Chief Program Officer Heidi Rackliffe said. “We’re not even in freezing temperatures yet. And to have this, I don’t even want to know what the next month is going to bring.”
The organization has 1,200 unanswered voicemails from people looking to apply for LIHEAP funds, and has already received around 1,000 online applications, Rackliffe said. It has a staff of 11 conducting intake interviews, and around five others certifying applications, but the sheer demand has created a bottleneck that Avec is struggling to keep up with. It is currently scheduling interviews into February.
Each interview takes about 45 minutes, so each of the staff members can only do around eight per day. The organization is working to hire more employees to take on the job, but its contract to administer the assistance program requires background checks for new hires, which can delay the process by more than a month, Parent said.
“Oftentimes, we might have a candidate that we fully vetted, that we’ve gone through the interview process, checked references, make a job offer, sent their name off for a background check, and a month later we’re still not able to have them on staff,” Parent said. “And then you end up losing them because they were seeking other employment.”
Online applications allow households to avoid the months-long wait for interviews, but strict documentation requirements mean a family could wait weeks to be approved for assistance, only to have their application denied on a technicality, such as having a corner of a Social Security card missing in a photo submission.
Then they apply again, adding to the bottleneck.
“The list keeps growing and growing and growing because we’re denying, unfortunately, more applications than we’re approving because the proof we’re getting through customers is not meeting the guidelines of the program,” Rackliffe said.
Avec has the most success with applications submitted through in-person interviews or phone appointments, she said, a step she recommended for older adults or those who don’t feel comfortable with technology.
Aroostook is one of seven Maine counties where more than a quarter of residents are 65 or older, many living on fixed incomes, who are disproportionately affected by rising costs.
“[They’re] truly worried. ‘How will I make it through this winter?’” said Vi Belanger, manager of Community & Memory Services for Aroostook Agency on Aging, which provides programming and services for older adults in The County. “This is real. This is raw.”
Many clients the agency works with are changing their diets in ways that stretch their money further, such as switching from fresh to canned meats, Belanger said. Some are considering foregoing heating oil to instead use space heaters or wood.
“There are quite a few of our clients that are also now going to food pantries and they’ve never had to before,” Belanger said. “This is a big deal.”
Maine is working with roughly $42 million in heating assistance funding this winter, including $4 million leftover from last winter and $38 million newly appropriated by the Department of Health and Human Services. The total is around what the state typically receives in LIHEAP funds, but with the high price of heating oil and the soaring need for assistance, those resources will be stretched thin.
MaineHousing — the quasi-state housing finance agency — is pushing LIHEAP administrators to process online applications “pretty immediately,” Parent said. They also face a contractual requirement to resolve applications from households with seniors and children under 6 — those most vulnerable to the cold — within 120 days.
Avec has tasked staff who already work with some young families in other programs, such as Head Start or WIC, with the administration of their LIHEAP applications to speed up the process. But it simply does not have the staff to meet all of the program’s requirements, Rackliffe said.
“I had a conversation with MaineHousing and I said, ‘I’m going to be out of compliance in one area, pick which is the lesser evil for you,’” Rackliffe said. “If I have to stay true to importing all these onlines, I’m no longer going to be able to make sure that all of the individuals with a vulnerability to hypothermic temperatures are going to be [processed] in the 120 days.
“It’s like [I’m] playing a game where I’m losing anywhere I look at it.”