Winter is coming, and fuel costs will hit the poor the hardest

  Winter is coming, and it’s going to be colder for some than others.

  “Starting junior year,” recalls Alexis Stewart, a West Virginia-based writer and musician, “my mom said we couldn’t afford heat and I had to ‘suck it up.’ I don’t know if we didn’t qualify for [the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program] those years or if the funding ran out before they got to us. I bought a space heater with money from my part-time job, but because of the poor insulation, I’d still wake up to a stiff, frozen blanket.”