MaineHousing is releasing $4 million to help low income residents deal with record high home heating oil prices ahead of winter.

The agency is using leftover funding from last heating season to help about 4,400 vulnerable households receive fuel before cold weather sets in.

Priority households include those with older adults, young children, and people with disabilities.

MaineHousing says the money is being sent to fuel vendors in order to make sure low income people enter winter with heating fuel available.

“By putting these carryover funds to work now, we hope to ease some of the financial pressure that extraordinarily high heating fuel prices are placing on Maine’s lowest-income households,” said MaineHousing Director Dan Brennan. “We know this assistance will not fully offset the outsized heating burden many Mainers are facing, but acting now means some of our most vulnerable households can begin the winter with fuel in their tanks.”

MaineHousing says it’s awaiting its annual federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The award typically arrives in late October or early November. Once the funding is available, MaineHousing says it’ll move quickly to pay fuel vendors serving approved applicants.

The agency says Home Energy Assistance Program payment helps approximately 40,000 households pay a portion of their home energy costs each season