More Islanders are expected to seek fuel assistance this winter than last year, but a spokesman for the South Shore agency that administers the government funds said this week that there is much less money to go around.

Lisa Spencer, energy director for the South Shore Community Action Council in Plymouth, said that federal funding for fuel assistance for low-income people is down 57 per cent from last year.

Ms. Spencer said last year the council assisted 300 Island households from Aquinnah to Edgartown with subsidies totaling $232,643. The money available this year will be less than half that amount, she said.

Many senior citizens receive fuel assistance, and application forms are available at all the Island councils on aging. The Oak Bluffs Council on Aging is the only center that administers fuel assistance for people under the age of 60. And center director Roger Wey said he has been busy.

“We are really inundated,” said Mr. Wey this week. “I have helped write 35 applications and I’ve only been doing this for two weeks.” The application process began Nov. 1.

Mr. Wey predicted a hard winter ahead for many. “This is the toughest year. People are hanging on by their fingers,” he said. “I feel very sorry for the single parents, some of the situations they are in. A husband may have taken off and left the wife with the children. Then there is the case where the wives have left their husbands and the husbands are left taking care of the kids. Thank God we have the food pantry,” Mr. Wey said.

And even for the average consumer not on fuel assistance, the news is less than rosy when it comes to winter heating bills ahead.

The price of home heating oil on Thursday with two Island vendors ranged from $4.23 to $4.40 a gallon. At the height of winter last year, Vineyarders paid as much as $5 a gallon.

“Get ready for paying a higher bill this winter,” said Cliff Karako, district manager for Vineyard Propane and Oil. “My costs have more than doubled from a year ago. What they are charging me has more than doubled. That is for oil and propane,” he said.

Ms. Spencer said her organization helped 12,532 people in the region last year, paying heating bills and also helping people qualify for discounts for kerosene, wood or coal.

The story is not confined to the Island. The federal Energy Information Administration on its Web site reports that the average price paid for heating oil by households in the Northeast more than doubled over the last seven winters.

Meanwhile, Ms. Spencer said: “Congress wants to cut spending. They want to go back to the 2008 numbers. There is a problem with that. Even the price of oil in this region, in Massachusetts has jumped 30 per cent between last winter and now. The price of propane is about 15 per cent higher.”

One Edgartown resident on fuel assistance who spoke on condition of anonymity, described her struggle this week. Unemployed and studying at an online college in the first year of a four-year program, she said she has a three-year-old child and an 18-year old living with her, along with an 81-year-old great-aunt. They all live in a drafty old house that they rent. “I put plastic all around the windows. This house requires attention it doesn’t get,” she said. “I dread winter. It gives me a bad taste in my mouth. I try and set aside money whenever I can, but it is really hard.” Last year she qualified for fuel assistance, but this year she is not sure. “I thought I had all the paperwork in back in August. We are three-quarters of the way through November and I haven’t gotten a letter telling me whether I am getting it or not,” she said.

“We are headed into a very scary winter. There are a lot of people coming to us for the first time,” said Laurie Schreiber, director of senior services at the Edgartown Council on Aging. Even though fuel assistance funds are limited, she urged seniors who might need help still to come in and fill out the forms. Besides getting on the list for aid, she said there are other sources for help. One is the Friends of the Edgartown Council on Aging, a nonprofit organization that contributes money to help Edgartown seniors with home heating bills.

Susan von Steiger, outreach coordinator for the Oak Bluffs Council on Aging, echoed Ms. Schreiber, urging people with a need to come in and apply for assistance.

She said she thinks the Vineyard should go one step further. “I think we should start something like a Cape Cod Needy Fund, especially for the younger people on the Island. We have so many women who have been left by their husbands because the economy is so bad,” Mrs. von Steiger said. “We need to start a fund. We need to help people not only pay for their heating, but by paying for their heating, we are helping them pay their rent.”