OCS DCL-2024-04 World Water Day 2024 Celebration

Office of Community Services

Dear Colleague Letter

DCL#: ACF-OCS-DCL-2024-04

DATE: March 22, 2024

TO: Office of Community Services Grant Recipients

SUBJECT: World Water Day 2024 Celebration

ATTACHMENT(S): N/A

Dear Colleagues,

The Office of Community Services (OCS) is proud to celebrate World Water Day 2024, an international observance celebrated annually on March 22. World Water Day was first established in 1993 and focuses on raising awareness around water access, affordability, and sanitation. The international theme for this year is Water for Peace, and OCS is emphasizing how The Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) and the Rural Community Development (RCD) Program help provide peace of mind for families across the United States. LIHWAP provided funds to U.S. states, tribes, and territories to assist low-income households with water and wastewater services through service restoration, prevention of water disconnection, and rate reductions. RCD builds community capacity for creating and maintaining safe and affordable water and wastewater systems for the nation’s unincorporated areas and rural communities.

World Water Day Website Updates

To mark the 2024 observance of World Water Day, OCS updated the OCS World Water Day website to include additional resources as well as information about LIHWAP and RCD programming over the last year. The website includes:

• National and tribal LIHWAP federal Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) and FY23 one-pagers, which provide an overview of LIHWAP's cumulative impact through September 30, 2023;
• LIHWAP state and territory FY22 and FY23 one-pagers for those state and territory recipients that did not receive no-cost extensions and closed out their programs on December 31, 2023;
• Spotlight videos highlighting the impact on states, tribes, and local communities;
• RCD grant recipient profiles, highlighting work being done across the country
• RCD state profiles and Project Highlights Map, highlighting work being done in each state;
• RCD Story Map, describing the work being done in rural communities with RCD funds;
• RCD spotlight video about United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc.’s partnership with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe;
• “Five Things to Know” documents for RCD and LIHWAP, containing essential information about each program; and
• A water resources one-pager with information about water and wastewater assistance for households and rural and tribal communities across the country.

Program Dashboards

In addition to the resources listed above, please visit the updated LIHWAP Dashboard to view grant recipient outcomes. An additional update will follow soon containing data from grant recipients that received a no-cost extension and FY23 Annual Report data for all LIHWAP grant recipients. Please also visit the updated RCD Information and Data Dashboard to read more about RCD impact and grant recipients.

Recently Released Water Affordability Survey

Yesterday, OCS issued the Understanding Water Affordability Across Contexts, LIHWAP Water Utility Affordability Survey. (PDF) As the LIHWAP program prepares to sunset at the end of March, this report presents findings from an exploratory study conducted to assess the cost of water for households and the financial challenges faced by water and wastewater utilities in the United States.

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

/s/

Dr. Lanikque Howard Director

Office of Community Services