Home heat help here

LYNN – A total of $450 million in emergency relief funds were released Wednesday by the federal government to assist needy families, with roughly $27.2 million targeted for Massachusetts.Record low temperatures have all but squeezed cash strapped families across the city struggling to keep their households warm, and they are still in danger of running out of heat in the dead of winter according to Lynn Economic Opportunity, Inc. (LEO) Executive Director John Mogielnicki.With the extra emergency funds, the assistance basically translates into 100 gallons of oil to be distributed to the poorest families in the city through the low-income energy assistance program (LIHEAP).Still, Mogielnicki said it’s not nearly enough and that people would most likely run out of the extra fuel before February hits.”There are going to be thousands of families without fuel because people are having such difficulty heating their homes, paying their bills and they are basically living off of credit cards,” he said. “It’s just a terrible situation.”On Thursday, Mogielnicki attended a home heating crisis hearing spearheaded by Senator Ted Kennedy at the State House in Boston to get the message out that people are in danger of dying to stay warm.Diane Colby, a Lynn resident, testified at the hearing regarding the difficulty of heating her home and paying her bills on time.”She’s really having a hard time and it’s very dangerous for the elderly and infants to stay warm without heat,” Mogielnicki said. “It’s hard to hear about kids shivering under six blankets at night just to stay warm.”On Wednesday, Mogielnicki said he attended a similar hearing in Boston in which he and other officials requested an additional $15 million in assistance.And in December, Mogielnicki said statewide interest was generated during a heat summit in Lynn that was purposely held to alert people to the nature of the crisis.Congressman John Tierney said he has been fighting for the extra funds since last November.”It is wrong for senior citizens to be forced to make a decision between filling prescriptions and paying for heat, and it is wrong for families to have to choose between shopping for groceries and paying for heat,” he said. “Fortunately, the administration has finally heeded the recommendations of congress to release emergency funding.”Roughly 40 percent of homes in the state and about 1,100 in the city rely on oil heat, which is currently hovering at or above $3 a gallon.In years past, Mogielnicki said LEO anticipated that emergency fuel assistance would range between $100,000 to $125,000, but now the range hovers around $600,000 to $1.2 million.To date, the state has already received about $82 million in fuel assistance, enough to help about 95,000 families.However, Mogielnicki said the situation is becoming a dire one.”The federal government has to basically double its assistance to $5.1 billion for low income families,” he said. “But the federal government isn’t stepping up and there are an awful lot of cold families out there.”