At one of the agencies that administers energy aid, Southern New Hampshire Services in Manchester, which covers Hillsborough County, there were 247 new applications for financial aid just last week and most of these were people behind on payments and facing shut-offs, said Louise Bergeron, energy director of the nonprofit agency.
One aid recipient, Rachel Trumphour, who lives with her two children in Nashua, N.H., heats with gas and electricity and started falling behind last year when she was injured and could not work. She now has a part-time job but cutoffs of energy loom. Last week, her electricity was briefly halted until the agency paid $150 and helped her work out a payment plan of about $190 a month.
When Ms. Trumphour received a shut-off notice from the gas company, the agency stepped forward with a $625 grant to start paying her debt. But she must make another monthly catch-up payment, of about $190. "I don’t know how I’m going to make these payments and also pay the rent,” Ms. Trumphour said.
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Federal energy assistance, Ms. Lovett said, is “vital to the low-income population, our poorest residents including seniors on fixed incomes and the working poor.”
Under the federal program, states are given money based on average temperatures, degree of reliance on the costliest fuels and numbers of poor people. Each state sets its own rules for distributing the money. In many states, aid is provided to applicants whose households make up to 150 percent of the official poverty line, or $30,326 for a family of four, though the highest benefits go to the poorest families.
Nearly all states bar utilities from cutting electrical and gas services during winter months. Some families, like Ms. Trumphour’s, put off paying electric and gas bills, then enter the spring owing large sums to utilities, leaving them at risk.
In Michigan, “we have just come to the end of the protection period,” said Donald Mussen, director of income support programs for the state. “People are getting pretty high bills this month, and I suspect there will be quite a few shut-offs in May.”
For oil users in Pennsylvania, mainly in rural areas, the crisis grants had to be increased to $500 from $300 this year, Ms. Blanchette said, because the suppliers, facing higher gasoline prices themselves, would not make deliveries of less than $500.
“We expect that minimum will be a lot more than $500 next year,” Ms. Blanchette said.
Taking a different tack, Maryland this year reduced the number of aid recipients, to 91,000 from 100,000, in order to provide extra money to those reliant on heating oil, giving as much as $1,190 to the poorest. The program has a waiting list of more than 10,000 eligible families, said Ralph Marcus, the state director.
“I think that next year, unless there is a major infusion of funds for Liheap, it’s going to be tougher,” Mr. Marcus said.
The choice between benefit levels and number of people aided is a wrenching one, he said.
“Next year we’re going to have to take a hard look at that,” Mr. Marcus said. “We may need to reduce benefits because we want to help as many people as possible.”
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