Advocates for the poor are calling on state officials to provide immediate aid to approximately 150,000 low-income Massachusetts households — about one-third of them seniors — who have exhausted their fuel-assistance benefits due to one of the coldest winters in recent memory.
In the Boston area alone, approximately 18,000 families have used up their federal benefits and confront stark choices: whether to pay for heat and rent, or whether to pay for food, medicine or electricity, said John Drew, president and CEO of Action for Boston Community Development.
"So many people are hurting this winter, and with weather like this, there doesn't seem to be any end in sight," Drew said. "Oil prices are down, but this has not been a normal winter. And electricity costs have gone way up."
The maximum federal fuel-assistance benefit is $1,025 for the poorest families — those with total incomes below the federal poverty level of $23,850 for a family of four.
On Jan. 21, Massachusetts received an additional $13 million in federal fuel assistance for qualifying residents, bringing the total fiscal year 2015 award to more than $144 million. But that $13 million divided among 150,000 households comes to just $86.66 per family.
That is not enough to pay for even half what Sydney Fuller-Jones says she owes for the gas that heats the Mattapan apartment where she lives with her 13-year-old twins.
Although they are in no imminent danger of losing their heat because of the self-imposed moratorium Massachusetts utilities have on shutting off heat from Nov. 15 to April 1 to customers who demonstrate financial hardship, the growing amount she owes puts her deeper and deeper into a debt she sees no way out of.
Since her husband died in 2011, Fuller-Jones has been the sole breadwinner in the family. And of the $1,800 in pay the 52-year-old administrative assistant takes home each month, $1,400 goes toward rent, and $400 pays for her car and insurance. The rest — food, clothes, electricity — she pays for with credit.
"I don't want to break down, but I just can't keep up," she said. "I have bouts of anxiety and struggle with depression. But I have to keep going for my children."
Last year, the state provided $20 million to increase benefits for heating assistance for families such as hers.
State Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill), chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said Friday that lawmakers will determine what options they have while dealing with a $768 million budget deficit.
Elizabeth Guyton, Gov. Charlie Baker's press secretary, said he "understands this year's bitterly cold weather presents serious challenges for many. The administration will work with the Legislature to ensure that the necessary fuel assistance resources are available to the most vulnerable during the winter months."
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