Five Things You Probably Didn’t Realize About Water and its Impact on Families and Communities in America

The Office of Community Services (OCS) administers five unique but interrelated anti-poverty programs that serve tens of millions of households each year. Two of these programs—the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) and the Rural Community Development (RCD) program— are working to address the barriers that prevent families and communities from accessing safe water and wastewater. As we celebrate World Water Week throughout the week of August 22-August 26^th, we are highlighting five things you may not know about the affordability, availability, and accessibility of water in the United States.  

1. More than two million Americans live without running water and basic indoor plumbing. Without water people cannot wash their hands, flush their toilets, or clean their homes. For too many American families and communities, this is their everyday reality. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Community Services is working to address the barriers that prevent families and communities from accessing safe water and wastewater with the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) and Rural Community Development (RCD) programs. 
2. Cost is a major barrier to water access. People experiencing unemployment, illness, or other setbacks are often unable to pay their water bills, causing the water to be shut off. To regain access to water, they must pay their past due bills and any fines incurred. In extreme cases, they must fill buckets of water at their neighbor’s home or purchase water bottles. As the first-ever federal water assistance program, LIHWAP helps reconnect water access and sets up payment plans to ensure the water stays on. Hear how LIHWAP turned the water on for a beneficiary whose water bills were unpaid while he was in the hospital .
3. Many American water systems are over 100 years old. Outdated or unmaintained infrastructure often leads to polluted or unreliable water for residents. In fact, water systems may not even reach all parts of an expanded community. RCD supports communities needing to update water systems by providing technical assistance for planning, funding, and executing improvement plans. In Magnolia, MS, RCD helped over 30 households connect to the city’s sewage system to eliminate sewage leakage into residents’ yards . 
4. Lack of access to safe, clean water and wastewater is a health equity issue. Without clean water, basic personal hygiene, food preparation, and proper cleaning becomes challenging. And without functioning wastewater systems, sewage can overflow into drinking water. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the health challenges faced when water is not safe. However, health issues are not experienced equally. Native Americans have contracted COVID-19 at a rate 3.5 times higher and have died at a rate 2.4 times higher than the non-Hispanic white population. Unsafe and low-quality municipal water, lack of access to clean water, contaminated well water, and lack of indoor plumbing are all contributing factors to this inequity. During Fiscal Year 2021, the Rural Community Development (RCD) program (PDF) enabled more than 16,000 additional residents to obtain access to safe drinking water and/or water in sufficient quantities to meet basic needs, and it enabled nearly 12,000 additional residents to obtain access to sanitary sewer systems that meet applicable public health guidelines and/or sewer systems with sufficient capacity and reliability to meet the needs of users.
5. Water and racial equity gaps are intertwined. The water equity gap in communities of color continue to be impacted by a history of racism. Native American households are 19 times more likely than white households to lack indoor plumbing, while Black and Latino households are twice as likely. And it gets worse. Nearly 30 percent of Native communities living on tribal lands and Latino communities living in low-income unincorporated areas in the Southwestern United States do not have access to clean drinking water. Navajo Nation residents are 67 times more likely than other Americans to live without access to running water. To address water equity gaps, LIHWAP and RCD serve all communities, including tribes. Since its founding in 2021, LIHWAP has provided more than $31 million for nearly 100 tribal grant recipients. (PDF)

World Water Week, August 22nd — August 26th, 2022

In honor of World Water Week, OCS will host a five-day virtual series entitled The Unseen Value of Water. We hope you will join us daily from 2:00 — 3:30 pm EST for engaging presentations, conversations, and live-to-tape site visits that reveal the unseen value of water from a variety of lenses and diverse perspectives. To learn more and to sign up for one or all of the World Water Week sessions, please visit: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/world-water-week-fy2022.