WAAT: Debt Collection and Transparency
The fight for policies and programs that ensure affordable access to water and sewer service begins with access to critical data held by utilities.
All Resources
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WAAT: Water Efficiency and Plumbing Repair Assistance
Nearly everywhere, the more water you use, the more you pay on your water bill. Anything that helps improve water use efficiency (that is, conserve water) in the home can reduce water bills. It can also reduce wastewater bills if you live in a community where sewer fees are based on the amount of water…
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WAAT: Equitable Water Rates
People often think of utility rates as a function of the total amount of money the utility needs in order to cover its operating costs, capital costs, and, for investor-owned utilities, its profit margin. The more a utility spends to produce clean water and treat wastewater, the higher the rates will be—at least without funding…
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WAAT: Affordability and Assistance Programs
Relatively few water or sewer utilities offer bill affordability or assistance programs to help households afford their monthly water bills. If adequately funded and thoughtfully designed, however, such programs can play a critical role enabling low-income households to pay their bills and stay connected to essentialwater service.
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WAAT: Protections and Support for Renters
Many lower-income households do not receive a water or sewer bill from a utility, even though they receive home water and sewer service. These are mostly renters, whose landlords are the direct customer of the utility.
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WAAT: Billing Problems and Dispute Resolution
When a utility’s billing practices are inaccurate or unfair, residents can receive outsize water bills that don’t reflect their actual usage. Incorrect bills can lead to shutoffs, liens, and other debt collection actions if the utility’s processes for disputing charges are not fair and accessible or if customers are unaware of thediscrepancy.
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WAAT: Water Debt
Unpaid water bills lead to late fees and shutoffs, threatening financial security, housing stability, and family health. As with other utilities, inability to pay for water and sewer services can also result in bills being sent to debt collectors, harming an individual’s credit history and score. Also like other utilities, aftera water shutoff a municipality…
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WAAT: Water Liens
For customers of publicly owned water and wastewater utilities, the consequences of unpaid water bills do not stop at late fees and disconnections but, rather, directly contribute to loss of home ownership. Families who cannot pay their water bills can lose their homes, either because a water shutoff makes it uninhabitable or because of a…
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WAAT: Water Shutoffs
No one should lose access to water because of an inability to pay a water bill. Utilities often claim that shutoffs are a necessary collection tool to protect utility revenues and to prevent unscrupulous people from “free riding” on paying customers. However, studies ranging from the 1970s to recent decades havedemonstrated that the overwhelming majority…
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WAAT: Background
The largest national rate survey found that between 1996 and 2018, water and sewer charges increased about 2.5 times as fast as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a standard measure of inflation for consumer goods and services. Another analysis, based on census data, found that household water and sewer costs more than doubled between 2000…
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WAAT: Introduction
In cities and towns around the country, families face service shutoffs, punitive fees, liens on their homes,foreclosure and home loss, and more when they cannot afford their water and sewer bills. All of these practices by utilities—often unconstrained by state consumer protection laws and without a robust financial safety net for vulnerable households—disproportionately impact communities…
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WAAT: Summary
State and Local Solutions to Household Water Affordability Challenges
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