Water Bill Payment Assistance Program for Low-income Californians Poised to Become Law
For Immediate Release
September 12, 2022
Contact:
Kelsey Hinton, Community Water Center, 765-729-1674, kelsey.hinton@communitywatercenter.org
Lesly Figueroa, Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, lfigueroa@leadershipcounsel.org
Water Bill Payment Assistance Program for Low-income Californians Poised to Become Law
SB 222 would advance California as a national leader in Water Affordability
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A bill awaiting signature by Gov. Gavin Newsom would make California the first state in the nation to help low-income residents afford their water and sewer bills.
In late August, supermajorities in both of California’s legislative chambers advanced a bill that would create the nation’s first statewide water and sewer rate assistance program: SB 222 by state Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa). The governor has expressed support for the law in concept: Newsom recently issued a 2022 Water Supply Strategy that calls for new investments for water affordability for low-income households. The document notes that similar programs already exist for electricity and telecommunications.
President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation would have provided funding for a pilot water affordability program at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. However, federal efforts to fund this affordability pilot have stalled. Governor Newsom again has the opportunity to lead the nation and demonstrate how affordability can be successfully addressed by signing SB 222 into law.
California families, including undocumented immigrants, who currently fall behind on their water bill face steep fines or risk seeing their water service shut off. As recently noted in Calmatters, nearly 650,000 California residences owed more than $315 million in unpaid water and wastewater bills, as of one year ago. Water bills continue to rise amid inflation and the growing cost of infrastructure that keeps water flowing reliably to homes and businesses.
As part of an emergency pandemic response, Newsom issued an executive order in 2020 that prohibited water utilities from shutting off water to homes and small businesses. But those protections ended at the close of 2021. Once SB 222 is signed, it would start the process for the State to design, fund, and carry out California’s Water Rate Assistance Program.
###
Community Water Center (CWC) works to ensure that all communities have reliable access to safe, clean, and affordable water. Founded in 2006, CWC is a not-for-profit environmental justice organization, whose mission is to act as a catalyst for community-driven water solutions through education, organizing, and advocacy. Web: www.communitywatercenter.org Twitter: @CWaterC Facebook: @CommunityWaterCenter
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability works alongside the most impacted communities to advocate for sound policy and eradicate injustice to secure equal access to opportunity regardless of wealth, race, income and place. We work with community leaders throughout the San Joaquin Valley and Eastern Coachella Valley on such issues as safe affordable drinking water, basic transit services, wastewater services, decent affordable housing, and the right to live free from industrial pollution with infrastructure that supports healthy lifestyles. Through co-powerment, organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, and research, we confront California's stark inequalities manifest in too many of California's low income communities and communities of color. Twitter: LCJandA FB: @lcjacalifornia IG: @leadership_counsel Web: leadershipcounsel.org
