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Halifax senior Sharon Russell is watching temperatures dip with a growing sense of dread.<\/p>\n
With home heating oil costs climbing sharply across Nova Scotia, Russell is among many residents concerned about the increased financial strain that will accompany the onset of colder weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cScary! Very scary,” said Russell, who heats her home with oil.<\/p>\n
“I hadn’t really noticed it so much until the other day.\u2026 And when I saw the number on furnace oil, I [said] \u2018Oh my God, what am I going to do?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Furnace oil prices<\/a> have increased by 40 per cent in Halifax since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes to begin the war with Iran at the end of February.\u00a0Diesel prices in Canada surpassed historic highs<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n The impacts are also being felt by local organizations across the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank in Halifax provides financial assistance to people in need.\u00a0<\/p>\n Increase in assistance requests<\/p>\n Brigitte MacInnes, communications director at Parker Street, says more people are reaching out to the non-profit organization for help with power bills and heating costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cJust this week, we’ve seen an increase in the ask for assistance from our emergency assistance program,\u201d said MacInnes.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said that as diesel prices rise, transportation and food costs will continue to climb, tightening budgets for Nova Scotians \u2014 particularly those who rely on Parker Street\u2019s services. <\/p>\n WATCH | Nova Scotians brace for surging oil prices: Nova Scotians feeling pinch of rising home heating costs<\/p>\n As the CBC’s Meig Campbell reports, people living on a fixed income who depend on oil to heat their homes are wondering how they’ll get by.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know grocery prices have gone up. We know gas prices have gone up. We know rent prices have gone up. They still have the same amount of money that has to be now spread further,\u201d said MacInnes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Home heating costs can be especially challenging for Nova Scotians on a fixed income, including seniors.<\/p>\n Organizations like the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) have raised concerns about how the ongoing affordability crisis is affecting seniors.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘They’re gonna have to make choices’<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re gonna have to make choices,\u201d said Steve Warburton, spokesperson for CARP’s Nova Scotia chapter.<\/p>\n “If you’re gonna pay for your heating oil, then it has to come out of your food budget or your rent budget. There’s only so much to go around and it’s going to impact them on many levels.\u201d<\/p>\n Warburton said provincial initiatives such as the Seniors Care Grant and the Heating Assistance Rebate Program offer some relief, but he hopes more can be done to help with costs this winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s very hard to save these days.\u2026 You can’t even kind of plan for it because you don’t know how much it’s gonna be. And that’s really the tough part of it,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n As for Russell, she said she plans to rely on whatever resources are available to navigate the cold season ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m a senior on fixed income.\u2026 I get help with oil and help with maintenance and I get all the help I know that I can possibly get,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n MORE TOP STORIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-907163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790206818_832_default.jpg\")
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