OCS DCL-2023-06 World Water Day FY2023

Office of Community Services

Dear Colleague Letter

DCL#:                               OCS-DCL-2023-06

DATE:                               March 22, 2023

TO:                                   OCS Grant Recipients

SUBJECT:                         World Water Day 2023 Celebration

ATTACHMENT(S):          N/A

Dear Colleagues,

The Office of Community Services (OCS) is proud to celebrate World Water Day , an international observance celebrated annually on March 22. World Water Day draws attention to the importance of clean water and sanitation, and raises awareness of the 2 billion people around the world living without access to safe water. Water is critically important for the health and well-being of our families and our communities, and especially for low-income households who are fighting every day to make ends meet.

To celebrate World Water Day, OCS is highlighting two key programs that help maintain affordable, safe and reliable water and wastewater services: The Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) and the Rural Community Development (RCD) program.

• LIHWAP provides funds to assist low-income households with water and wastewater services. The program also prioritizes restoring services for households that have been disconnected, preventing disconnection, and reducing rates for households that need help paying their bills.
• The RCD program builds community capacity for creating and maintaining safe and affordable water and wastewater systems for the nation’s unincorporated areas and lowest-income communities. For additional information about some of RCD’s active projects, please visit the RCD Grant Awards Webpage.

World Water Day Website Updates

To mark last year’s observance, OCS launched a World Water Day website with resources and tools highlighting the impact of LIHWAP and RCD. This year, we are excited to announce the launch of several new resources on the World Water Day website including:

• LIHWAP water service provider and beneficiary spotlight videos highlighting the impact LIHWAP has had in Kentucky.
• A National FY2022 LIHWAP Annual Report One-Pager (PDF) which provides an overview of LIHWAP's impact through September 30^th, 2022.
• LIHWAP State and Territory FY2022 Annual Report One-Pagers for those recipients that served over 3,000 households in FY22.
• RCD spotlight videos highlighting the program’s impact in Pennsylvania and New Mexico .
• An animated video featuring the structure and impact of RCD in English , Mandarin , and Spanish .
• An interactive map featuring all RCD programs across the country, as well as individual State Snapshots.

In addition to the resources listed above, please visit the updated LIHWAP Dashboard to view data from grant recipients Fiscal Year Annual Reports submitted and approved by March 1^st, 2023. Additional data indicators and grant recipient approved annual reports will be added to the dashboard during quarterly dashboard updates.

We hope that you will join us in celebrating World Water Day as well as our collective efforts to create resilient communities that help to address the needs of our nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families.

/s/
Dr. Lanikque Howard
Director
Office of Community Services