If you had to choose between paying for the natural gas that heats your children's bedrooms, or eating three square meals a day, which would it be? Would you decide to stop making payments on the car you rely on to get to work, or simply dress your family in extra layers of clothing and turn the thermostat as far down as you could stand it?

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Fotene Veneris Kouknas has been militant about her utility costs, keeping the thermostat at or below 68 degrees. She throws on extra clothing if she gets too cold. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Online graphic: Heating costs Assistance available Anyone who needs assistance with heating bills can contact LIHEAP at 1-866-857-7095 or the Dollar Energy Fund at 888-282-6816.

Rising natural gas prices are forcing thousands of local families to make such sacrifices. According to the Pennsylvania Office of the Consumer Advocate, the overall cost of gas has gone up 10 percent to 20 percent this winter, adding between $150 to $200 to the average customer's total winter bill. Equitable Gas, for instance, currently charges about 13 percent more for gas than it did a year ago.

Those price increases, caused by low supply at a time of high demand, are straining programs such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the Dollar Energy Fund, which are designed to help low-income customers such as Amber Watson pay heating bills.

Watson, who just moved into a two-bedroom apartment in the North Side's Manchester neighborhood, received her first bill from Equitable Gas on Tuesday. It was a two-month bill for $993.

"This is a big deal to me," said Watson, who as a temp earns $8.84 per hour as a customer service representative. "I think I'm going to have to move. I'm not going to be able to afford to pay this gas bill, I don't have $1,000 to pay this bill."

Watson, 24, has two children -- daughter Micah, 5, and son Mekhi, 1 . She takes home about $290 a week, and after she pays her Section 8-subsidized rent, her electric, phone, food, cable and wireless bills, as well as the payment on her Dodge Neon, Watson is tapped out.

When she moved in, Watson said, she didn't really give a second thought to the apartment's high ceilings, the older-looking windows or the now-decorative fireplace. The previous tenant's gas bills were around $540 a month. Watson admitted that she kept her thermostat set to a "comfortable" 75 degrees.

A spokesman for Equitable said the company urges renters to check the energy usage history for a house or apartment before they sign a lease.

"[My landlord] didn't say anything to me," Watson recalled. "He came by in December and told me to be sure and get the bill transferred to my name."

Watson's upstairs neighbor told her that to keep her bills manageable, she keeps her thermostat at 60 degrees.

"And I'm like, 60 degrees? That's not even on."

Now Watson is thinking about her options: canceling her cell phone and cable, putting a space heater in Micah and Mekhi's bedroom, and perhaps skipping the occasional meal herself.

Like Watson, many gas customers have found themselves struggling to pay their bills. They wrap their homes in plastic sheeting, skulk around their basements trying to locate their gas meters, and flock to hardware stores to buy caulking and space heaters. And, given the recent frigid temperatures, they dread the inevitable arrival of the monthly gas bill.

A study released last year shows that families living at or below 50 percent of the federal poverty level spend a large portion of their monthly income, 38 percent or more, to heat and cool their homes. Often, they skip meals or avoid taking prescription medicines so they can afford to pay their utility bills.

The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program was created to help such vulnerable households -- those with elderly or disabled members, single mothers and families living at or below the poverty level -- to pay their energy bills. Watson has applied for help.

LIHEAP's "cash" fund is meant for people having a hard time paying their bills. LIHEAP's "crisis" benefits are for weather-related or supply-shortage emergencies, for households without heat or water or electricity, or those in imminent danger of being cut off. Unfortunately, LIHEAP is able to help only about 5 million of the 30 million households across the country that need it.

Pennsylvania receives the second-highest allocation of LIHEAP funding in the nation, $126.7 million for this heating season, trailing only New York, said Sally Petrilli, program administrator for Allegheny County's Crisis program. In terms of energy assistance, Allegheny County is the second-neediest county in the state, Petrilli added.

A new state law makes such assistance even more crucial. The law allows utility companies, for the first time since 1978, to shut off a customer's service during the winter months without first obtaining a waiver from the state Public Utility Commission. The law applies to customers with incomes over 250 percent of the federal poverty level -- $47,125 for a family of four.

The PUC released data on Wednesday showing that the state's six major gas companies cut off 43,083 households in 2004, down slightly from 44,449 in 2003. Overall, those six major gas companies shut off 31 out of every 1,000 residential gas customers in 2003, 12 percent more accounts than the previous year.

Fotene Veneris Kouknas has had her gas shut off before.

In her Mt. Lebanon duplex, Kouknas has been militant about her utility costs, keeping the thermostat at or below 68 degrees. She throws on extra clothing if she gets too cold. She goes to her mother's house a few blocks away to take showers, eats microwaveable dinners and takes care to turn out every light behind her as she moves through the three-bedroom apartment. However, when her two sons, Nikolas, 13, and Andreas, 9, stay with her -- they split time between Kouknas and her ex-husband in Castle Shannon -- she turns the heat up a little.

"Niko's bedroom is probably the coldest room in the house," she explained. "You can feel the air coming through the windows."

When her gas was shut off last year, she borrowed a couple of space heaters from her brother, but was afraid to use kerosene or propane heaters to warm the house. Now she focuses on keeping her water service active, but with a $1,200 water bill, shutoff seems imminent.

"By the skin of my teeth, I have water," said Kouknas.

Around the holidays, Kouknas kept the lights off in her living and dining room area, using the glow of her Christmas tree lights to illuminate the room.

Kouknas, 36, lives on Social Security for her depression and bipolar disorder. She struggles to make it in Mt. Lebanon so that Niko and Andreas can go to Mt. Lebanon schools. Kouknas receives $550 each month, and her ex-husband helps her to pay the $700 monthly rent. But when her gas bills routinely topped $350 a month, she turned to LIHEAP and the Dollar Energy Fund. Together, they shrunk a $131 per month budgeted payment on her gas bill, "almost impossible for me" said Kouknas, to a more realistic $44 per month.

The Dollar Energy Fund, a nonprofit that partners with 11 Pennsylvania utility companies, helps low-income customers to heat their homes. Customers can choose to donate an extra dollar or two, or more, to their utility bill, and the utilities match every donation. The Dollar Energy Fund assisted 11,355 families last winter, according to spokeswoman Becky Biddle, awarding a total of $3.1 million to customers in need. The average grant was $274.

"Eighty percent of the people we serve are seniors or female head-of-household with one child," said Biddle.

To be eligible for help from the Dollar Energy Fund, the customer must demonstrate that they've made a sincere effort toward payment of their bill, and must produce documents that show a balance of at least $150 owed to the utility company. The income limit is $37,700 for a family of four, said Biddle.

Because of the increase in gas prices, the Dollar Energy Fund has experienced a 65 percent increase in need for assistance overall, and a 263 percent increase in requests from senior citizens.