
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080370
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: Mike Hudson
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

HEAT AID FUND GETS $3.7 MILLION

Virginia welfare officials have come up with an extra $3.7 million to help poor people who need fuel assistance.

The money will be used to help 9,400 families whose fuel-assistance applications were still pending when the state's original heating fund ran out last month.

Any remaining money will be used for emergency cases in which people have run out of fuel or are facing utility cutoffs that would leave them without heat. The emergency program will run through Feb. 28.

The department earlier told local welfare agencies to cut off applications in non-emergency cases as of Jan. 4.

The department's original $35 million federal grant for fuel assistance was drained by applications from families hit hard by the weakening economy and huge jumps in oil prices.

A welfare spokesman said Thursday that Gov. Douglas Wilder had authorized the transfer of $3.7 million to the fuel-assistance program from a special fund financed by oil companies convicted of price gouging in the mid-1980s.

by CNB