Council members want to expand subsidies for low-income customers’ water bills

With home water bills rising to pay for upgrades to Philadelphia s aging water system City Council will consider law that aims to bring relief to low-income homeowners and renters as well as residents who are hit with huge catch-up bills Councilmember Jamie Gauthier broadcasted a package of three measures she calls Just Water and stated it has the encouragement of other members more than enough to ensure its passage Water is a basic human right not a luxury and we are lucky to live in a city where our water system belongs to taxpayers not corporate interests As rates climb Just Water will ensure families do not lose access to clean and affordable water she revealed Thursday One bill would expand eligibility for the Tiered Assistance Activity or TAP which provides participants with a low set monthly water bill based on their income Customers with incomes up to of the federal poverty level would be eligible up from in the present and more people could enter payment plans for overdue bills Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier Emma Lee WHYY A second measure seeks to guarantee that the Philadelphia Water Department will cover part of the extremely high bills sometimes up to several thousand of dollars that specific homeowners have received after their water meters are replaced and it turns out they were underpaying for years The third calls for a hearing on the issue of renters losing water organization or not being eligible for assistance because bills are in their landlords names In the past the city-owned water department has been cautious about expanding TAP because lost revenue would have to be made up by increasing water rates overall Water rate experts are working with PWD and the Revenue Department to analyze the impacts so they can understand what they would mean for the utility s financial vitality and for other customers a spokesperson reported The analysis will be shared with City Council The Parker administration shares the Councilmember s goal of providing clean drinking water to all Philadelphians and have implemented various of the largest part robust protections and programs to make water utility affordable PWD spokesperson Brian Rademaekers stated Given the Water Department s critical role in protecting community physical condition and the context the city-owned utility must be adequately funded Lacking considerable financial encouragement from state or federal sources revenue from water bills remains the bedrock providing funds for essential infrastructure expenditure and day-to-day operations delivering and treating water for the city s million people around the clock he revealed Skyrocketing living costs Gauthier s proposal which she announced will get a council hearing next year comes two weeks after elections that saw voters punish Republican candidates over mounting worries about inflation and the rising cost of living which specific blame on the Trump administration The measures co-sponsors include Councilmember Nicolas O Rourke a Working Families Party member who last month offered his own package to control costs for low-income residents He proposed rent rebates an expansion of SEPTA s Zero Fare operation and a ban on any future attempt to privatize the water department City Councilmember At-Large Nicolas O Rourke held a press conference at LOVE Park to announce the Affordable Philly agenda on October Kimberly Paynter WHYY Gauthier s proposal was very very easy to endorse because it s another crucial effort to keep life affordable for Philadelphians O Rourke mentioned I m working to ensure the system can t be privatized to avoid the steep rate hikes that follow a sell-off But our constituents system still requires fair and transparent rate increases so we need to make sure paying the water bill is manageable when wages aren t inflating as fast as the price of life s essentials Water rates increased in September to about a month for the typical household PWD attributed the increase to rising labor and equipment costs new federal regulations requiring approaches to improve surface and drinking water quality and the costs of Philadelphia s -year multibillion-dollar Water Revitalization Plan which aims to prevent system failures Without a rate increase the water department commented it would have to cut back on essential services including for its wastewater and stormwater collection systems The new raft of proposals comes amid a heated debate at the state and regional levels over rapidly increasing home electricity costs and the impact of power-hungry details centers being built to satisfy demand from the booming artificial intelligence industry PECO bills are rising over the module of two years due to factors including higher demand the cost of maintaining and upgrading power distribution infrastructure closures of coal-fired power plants and the slow pace at which new renewable force sources are getting added to the regional power grid Skyrocketing costs force too multiple Philadelphians into an impossible dilemma Gauthier revealed Keep the lights on put food on the table or pay the water bill Reviving shared responsibility TAP the undertaking targeted for expansion began in and has participants who pay water bills set at to of their income Ballenger reported In addition to people who meet the income guidelines it aids selected customers with higher incomes who have suffered a special hardship like a sudden loss of income or a household member The council ordinance would also change the eligibility rule for affordable past-due payment plans that set payments at of household income Customers with incomes from to of the federal poverty level would be eligible up from to presently In particular years the cost of TAP subsidies increases creating an added expense for PWD that might have to be made up with higher water rates while in other years the cost goes down Ballenger declared A TAP expansion could reduce the number of customers who skip payments which might help the utility s bottom line Ballenger mentioned he d like to see it paired with a boost to conservation programs that help households reduce their water use and thus see lower bills The second measure meanwhile attempts to improve the water department s response to the fallout from its ongoing project to replace meters in homes across the city For particular houses PWD has been unable to gather water use input for years Radios in the meters failed to transmit the information and the department instead created estimated bills In various cases when it at last replaces an old meter the agency discovered the estimates had been too low and sent the homeowner a huge bill to make up for past underpayments People think that they ve paid everything they re supposed to pay and then their meter gets replaced and the next thing they know they get a multi-thousand dollar water bill Ballenger explained That s a challenge for any household obviously It s a bigger challenge to low- and moderate-income households and it represents a real menace to those households for whom but for their ability to pay that will become a lien on their property That will indeed deprive them of particular of the value of their homes he explained In the city instituted a shared responsibility procedures under which the customer had to pay for months of water use and half of the remainder with PWD picking up the other half Ballenger disclosed However he disclosed the plan has not been applied evenly and customers only learn about the assistance when they complain It seems like sort of an ad hoc approach Various people might not be getting any relief because it s certainly not something that the city is doing affirmatively he announced The idea is for the city to have an affirmative process to say now we re going to deal with these metering issues going forward and consistently addressing customers necessities with them City lawyers contend that City Council doesn t have the authority to create a campaign that compromises on the future indebtedness by mandating financial assistance according to Ballenger But the provision would start the process of creating the project he noted Managing landlord-tenant struggles The third part of Gauthier s package authorizes council hearings on issues that can arise when water bills are in a landlord s name instead of a tenant s One predicament is that TAP and programs like the Utility Crisis Provision Fund UESF are only available to qualifying households who have their name on the bill You might not be able to get the water bill in your name because for one reason or another your landlord forbids that from happening or because your landlord isn t right now licensed Ballenger commented Selected low-income tenants who are clients of CLS face that issue and that means that they are at threat of paying more than they otherwise would In a few cases a landlord will suddenly demand a tenant pay for a large accumulated water bill that isn t in their name leading to threats of eviction if they can t afford it he declared Those are really challenging cases and quite frankly displacement over a water bill is something that we should be able to resolve he mentioned So the idea is to start having specific conversations to look for the best program solutions to prevent that displacement from happening because it is happening Gauthier cited a West Philadelphia renter who lost water provision because his landlord stopped paying the bill The city narrated him he would have to pay to have operation restored and later refused to turn the water back on because the landlord didn t have a rental license the councilmember explained It isn t fair that I have to suffer because my landlord isn t paying the bill the man announced according to Gauthier s office I ll provide any information that they need to turn the water back on Achievable solutions include coming up with solutions for tenants to become official customers or making them eligible for TAP assistance even if their names aren t on bills Ballenger announced Another idea that had helped in the past is doubling the value of subsidies from UESF and other assistance funds so that in aid provides in debt relief The post Council members want to expand subsidies for low-income customers water bills appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY