Water Affordability and Equity

National water associations, state agencies, and individual communities face enormous challenges around funding and staffing as they address the need to make water affordable while keeping water service safe and sustainable.

We have worked extensively with organizations and agencies at every level, including national-level policy work related to water affordability, state-level assistance in defining affordability and determining eligibility for limited-income areas, and advising individual communities about how to develop customer assistance programs (CAPs).

At the national level, we have worked extensively with organizations such as the American Water Works Association, providing research that informs policy development. At the state level we have helped determine eligibility criteria for assistance to limited-income areas. These criteria include metrics to complement the commonly used median household income by looking at measures such as average water bill, population change, and dependency ratios.

We advise individual communities about issues related to the affordability burden in their specific customer base, including help developing customer assistance projects (CAPs) to alleviate the associated problems. We also work with communities to help them develop marketing strategies tailored to their potential subscribers. Limited-income customers may be difficult to reach about the CAP for a variety of reasons. Some speak a different language, some live in multifamily housing, and literacy is a problem in other areas. We tease these factors out in order to reach people so that they can participate in the CAPs.

Relevant Clients:

• Clayton County Water Authority

• Valor Water Analytics- A Xylem Brand

• Phoenix Water Services

• The River Network

• Greater Cincinnati Water Works, OH (Subcontractor)

• South Bend Water Works, IN (Subcontractor)