If the number of people walking through their doors is any indication, social service workers say 2007-2008 is already shaping up to be the toughest winter in recent memory.

Some people are forced to choose between heating their homes and eating.

"I have a man in town: One day his cat eats, and the next day he eats," said Susan Gannon, director of Middleton's Council on Aging. "I've got a woman right now who is just on the border of being able to survive the winter."

Dramatic price increases in food, gasoline, heating oil and other basics is resulting in a "perfect storm," making this already the worst winter Tom Gifford, executive director of Beverly Bootstraps, has seen in 15 years. People have to cut back on food, making pantries a necessity, he said.

"Those economic factors are really grinding families down," he said.

In November 2006, the pantry recorded 426 visits. This November, that number was up to 572, Gifford said.

"That's a very clear indication of the kind of economic travail that's going on out there for low-income families."

Four days a week, at least another 15 people - now 100 - line up for meals from Haven From Hunger in Peabody, said Trudy MacIntyre, the executive director. She said demand is up and only getting worse because people are having to pay more than $3 a gallon to fill their tanks with heating oil.

While more people need more help, the help won't go as far, said Beth Hogan, executive director of North Shore Community Action Programs, which runs a heating-oil-assistance program.

"Demand is up, but it's important to understand that the price of oil has increased enormously in the last three years. The benefit is not buying half the oil, so that's kind of coming to a head this year," she said.

The typical assistance of $750 doesn't go far now.

"It'll fill you up (once), and you're done. But people are burning through in this colder weather a tank or a tank and a half a month," she said. "It's a very bad year."

Barbara Remon at Danvers' People to People Food Pantry said she doesn't know exactly how much demand is up, but she knows the need is higher this year.

"People are losing their jobs. There's all kinds of different reasons why the need is up. I can't say there's any one specific reason, but rents are higher, food prices are higher, fuel prices are higher, children's Christmas gifts are up ridiculously high," she said.

Capt. Nora McNeil, who leads the Salem division of the Salvation Army with her husband, Scott, said people who would normally donate are themselves in tough positions.

"We have people who have lost their jobs, and now they have car payments and house payments that they can't meet because they lost their jobs," McNeil said. "There was one woman who walked through the door the other day who said, 'I just got let go from a $50,000-a-year job.'"

With demand high, some of the social-service agencies said they didn't know how supplies would fare. McNeil said the Salvation Army's Salem and Beverly pantries are low on food, and their supplier has been unable to fill orders.

Gifford said Bootstraps hopes Beverly neighbors will remain as charitable as they always have been; donations to the organization are also at a high.

"If it does go on this way, we are really going to be counting on folks to keep the holiday spirit up through the entire winter, and through the entire year, because people are still going to be facing those economic pressures whether it's December or whether it's April," he said.

At Haven From Hunger, people who used to support the pantry and soup kitchen are now getting help from it. MacIntyre said that, "by the grace of God," the agency had never had to turn anyone away. She continues that faith.

"It's close to the worst years, yes it is," she said. "In this line of work, you just have to believe that everything's going to work out all right."